


flowers for algernon- Daniel keys

by moose_04



Category: Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 15:55:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28709307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moose_04/pseuds/moose_04





	flowers for algernon- Daniel keys

PI'GirfS rfport 1 •rtch 3  
Dr Strauss says I shoud rite down what I think and remembir and evrey thing that happins to me from now on.  
I dont no why but he says its importint so they will see if  
they can use me. I hope they use me becaus Miss Kinnian  
says mabye they can make me smart. I want to be smart.  
My name is Charlie Gordon I werk in Donners bakery  
where Mr Donner gives me 11 dollers a week and bred or  
cake if I want. I am 32 yeres old and next munth is my  
brithday. I tolld dr Strauss and perfesser Nemur I cant rite  
good but he says it dont matter he says I shud rite just like  
I talk and like I rite compushishens in Miss Kinnians class  
at the beekmin collidge center for retarted adults where I  
go to lern 3 times a week on my time off. Dr. Strauss says  
to rite a lot evrytbing I think and evrytbing that happins to  
me but I cant think anymor because I have nothing to rite  
so I will close for today ••• yrs truly Charlie Gordon.  
PfOII'Is rlport 2--rtch 4  
I had a test today. I think I faled it and I think mabye now  
they wont use me. What happind is I went to ProfNemurs  
office on my lunch time like they said and his secertery  
took me to a place that said psych dept on the door with a  
long hall and alot of littel rooms with onley a desk and  
chares. And a nice man was in one of the rooms and he  
had some wite cards with ink spilld all over them. He sed  
sit down Charlie and make yourself cunfortible and rilax.  
I   
He had a wite coat like a docter but I dont think he was no  
docter because he dint tell me to opin my mouth and say  
ah. All he had was those wite cards. His name is Burt. I fergot his last name because I dont remembir so good.  
I dint know what he was gonna do and I was holding  
on tite to the chair like sometimes when I go to a dentist  
onley Burt aint no dentist neither but he kept telling me to  
rilax and that gets me skared because it always means its  
gonnahert.  
So Burt sed Charlie what do you see on this card. I  
saw the spilld ink and I was very skared even tho I got my  
rabits foot in my pockit because when I was a kid I always  
&led tests in school and I spilld ink to.  
I tolld Burt I saw ink spilld on a wite card. Burt said  
yes and he smild and that maid me feel good. He kept  
terning all the cards and I tolld him somebody spilld ink  
on all of them red and black. I thot that was a easy test but  
when I got up to go Burt stoppd me and said now sit  
down Charlie we are not thru yet. Theres more we got to  
do with these cards. I dint understand about it but I remembir Dr Strauss said do anything the testor telld me  
even if it dont make no sense because thats testing.  
I dont remembir so good what Burt said but I remembir he wantid me to say what was in the ink. I dint see  
nothing in the ink but Burt sed there was picturs there. I  
coudnt see no picturs. I reely ttyed to see. I holded the card  
up dose and then far away. Then I said if I had my eye  
glassis I coud probaly see better I usully only ware my eyeglassis in the movies or to watch 'IV but I sed maybe they   
will hdp me see the picturs in the ink. I put them on and  
I said now let me see the card agan I bet I find it now.  
I tryed hard but I still coudnt find the picturs I only  
saw the ink. I tolld Bun mabey I need new glassis. He rote  
somthing down on a paper and I got skared of faling the  
test. So I tolld him it was a very nice pictur of ink with  
pritty points all around the eges but he shaked his head so  
that wasnt it neither. I asked him if other pepul saw things  
in the ink and he sed yes they imagen picturs in the  
inkblot. He tolld me the ink on the card was calld inkblot.  
Bun is very nice and he talks slow like Miss Kinnian  
dose in her class where I go to lern reeding for slow adults.  
He explaned me it was a raw shok test. He sed pepul see  
things in the ink. I said show me where. He dint show me  
he just kept saying think imagen theres something on the  
card. I tolld him I imaggen a inkblot. He shaked his head  
so that wasnt rite eather. He said what does it remind you  
of pretend its something. I closd my eyes for a long time to  
pretend and then I said I pretend a bond of ink spilld all  
over a wite card. And thats when the point on his pencel  
broke and then we got up and went out.  
I dont think I passd the raw shok test.  
3d proerls rlport  
111111'teb S-Or Strauss and profNemur say it dont matter  
about the ink on the cards. I tolld them I dint spill the ink  
on them and I coudnt see anything in the ink. They said  
maybe they will still use me. I tolld Dr Strauss that Miss  
3   
Kinnian never gave me tests like that only riting and reeding. He said Miss Kinnian tolld him I was her bestist pupil  
in the Beekman School for retarted adults and I tryed the  
hardist becaus I reely wantd to lem I wantid it more even  
then pepul who are smarter even then me.  
Dr Strauss askd me how come you went to the Beekman School all by yourself Charlie. How did you find out  
about it. I said I dont remembir.  
ProfNemur said but why did you want to lem to reed  
and spell in the frist place. I tolld him because all my life I  
wantid to be smart and not dumb and my mom always  
tolld me to tty and lem just like Miss Kinnian tells me but  
its very hard to be smart and even when I lem something  
in Miss Kinnians class at the school I ferget alot.  
Dr Strauss rote some things on a peice of paper and  
prof Nemur talkd to me very sereus. He said you know  
Charlie we are not shure how this experamint will werk on  
pepul because we onley tried it up to now on animils. I said  
thats what Miss Kino ian tolld me but I dont even care if it  
herts or anything because 1m strong and I will werk hard.  
I want to get smart if they will let me. They said they  
got to get pennissen from my f.unilie but my uncle Herman  
who use to take care of me is ded and I dont rimember  
about my f.unilie. I dint see my mother or f.u:her or my littel sister Norma for a long long long time. Mabye their ded  
to. Dr. Sttauss askd me where they use to live. I think in  
brooklin. He sed they will see if mabye they can find them.  
I hope I dont have to rite to much of these progris riports because it takes along time and I get to sleep very   
late and 1m tired at werk in the morning. Gimpy hollered  
at me because I droppd a tray full of rolles I was carrying  
over to the oven. They got derty and he had to wipe them  
off before he put them in to bake. Gimpy hollers at me  
all the time when I do something rong, but he reely likes  
me because hes my frend. Boy if I get smart wont he be  
serprised.  
PI'OIJriS rlport 4  
mar 6-I had more crazy tests today in case they use me.  
That same place but a differnt littel testing room. The nice  
lady who give it to me tolld me the name and I askd her  
how do you spell it so I can put it down rite in my progis  
riport. THEMATIC APPERCEPTON TEST. I dont know the frist  
2 werds but I know what test means. You got to pass it or  
you get bad marks.  
This test lookd easy because I coud see the picturs.  
Only this time she dint want me to tell what I saw in the  
picturs. That mixd me up. I tolld her yesterday Burt said I  
shoud tell what I saw in the ink. She said that dont make  
a difrence because this test is something else. Now you got  
to make up storys about the pepul in the picturs.  
I said how can I tell storys about pepul I dont know.  
She said make beleeve but I tolld her thats lies. I never tell  
lies any more because when I was a kid I made lies and I  
always got hit. I got a piaur in my walet of me and Norma  
with Uncle Herman who got me the job to be janiter at  
Donners bakery before he dyed.  
s   
I said I coud make storys about them because I livd  
with Uncle Herman along time but the lady dint want to  
hear about them. She said this test and the other one the  
raw shokwas for getting persinality. I laffd. I tolld her how  
can you get that thing from cards that sombody spilld ink  
on and fotos of pepul you dont even no. She lookd angrey  
and took the picturs away. I dont care.  
I gess I faled that test too.  
Then I drawed some picturs for her but I dont drawer  
so good. Later the other testor Burt in the wite coat came  
back his name is Burt Sdden and he took me to a diferent  
place on the same 4th floor in the Beekman University  
that said PSYCHOLOGY LABoRATORY on the door. Burt said  
psychology means minds and laboratory meens a place  
where they make spearamints. I thot he ment like where  
they made the chooing gum but now I think its puzzels  
and games because thats what we did.  
I coudnt werk the puzzels so good because it was all  
broke and the peices coudnt fit in the holes. One game was  
a paper with lines in all derections and lots of bo:xs. On  
one side it said STARI' and on the other end it said PINISH.  
He tolld me that game was amazed and I shoud take the  
pencil and go from where it said STARI' to where it said PINISH withowt crossing over any of the lines.  
I dint understand the amazed and we used up a lot of  
papers. Then Burt said look Ill show you something lets go  
to the sperimentallab mabye youll get the idea. We went  
up to the 5th Boor to another room with lots of cages and  
6   
animils they had monkys and some mouses. It had a funny  
smellike old garbidge. And there was other pepul in wite  
coats playing with the animils so I thot it was like a pet  
store but their wasnt no customers. Bun took a wite mouse  
out of the cage and showd him to me. Bun said thats Algernon and he can do this amazed very good. I tolld him  
you show me how he does that.  
Well do you know he put Algernon in a box like a big  
tabel with alot of twists and terns like all kinds of walls and  
a STAKI' and a PINISH like the paper had. Only their was a  
skreen over the big tabel. And Bun took out his clock and  
lifted up a slidding door and said lets go Algernon and the  
mouse sniffd 2 or 3 times and startid to run. First he ran  
down one long row and then when he saw he coudnt go  
no more he came back where he startid from and he just  
stood there a minit wiggeling his wiskers. Then he went off  
in the other detection and startid to run again.  
It was just like he was doing the same thing Burt  
wanted me to do with the lines on the paper. I was laffing  
because I thot it was going to be a hard thing for a mouse  
to do. But then Algernon kept going all the way threw that  
thing all the rite ways till he came out where it said PINISH  
and he made a squeek. Bun says that means he was happy  
because he did the thing rite.  
Boy I said thats a smart mouse. Bun said woud you  
like to race against Algernon. I said sure and he said he had  
a diffemt kind of amaze made of wood with rows  
skratched in it and an electrik stick like a pencil. And he  
7   
coud fix up Algemons amaze to be the same like that one  
so we could both be doing the same kind.  
He moved all the bords around on Algemons tabe1 because they come apart and he could put them together in  
d.iffernt ways. And then he put the skreen back on top so  
Algernon woudnt jump over any rows to get to the FINISH.  
Then he gave me the elecaik stick and showd me how to  
put it in between the rows and 1m not suppose to lift it off  
the bord just follow the little skratches until the pencil cant  
move any more or I get a little shock.  
He took out his clock and he was trying to hide it. So  
I tryed not to look at him and that made me very nervus.  
When he said go I tryed to go but I dint know where  
to go. I didnt know the way to take. Then I herd Algernon  
squeeking from the box on the tabe1 and his feet skratching like he was runing alredy. I startid to go but I went in  
the rong way and got stuck and a littel shock in my fingers  
so I went back to the STAKI' but evertime I went a differnt  
way I got stuck and a shock. It didnt hert or anything just  
made me jump a littel and Burt said it was to show me I  
did the wrong thing. I was haffway on the bord when I  
herd Algernon squeek like he was happy again and that  
means he won the race.  
And the other ten times we did it over Algernon won  
evry time because I coudnt find the right rows to get to  
where it says FINISH. I dint feel bad because I watched Algernon and I lemd how to finish the amaze even if it takes  
me along time.  
I dint know mice were so smart.  
8   
progrls rlport 5 •r 6  
They found my sister Norma who lives with my mother in  
Brooklin and she gave permissen for the operashun. So  
their going to use me. 1m so exited I can hardley rite it  
down. But then Prof Nemur and Dr Strauss had a argament about it &ist. I was sitting in Prof Nemurs office  
when Dr Strauss and Burt Selden came in. Prof Nemur  
was worryed about using me but Dr Strauss tolld him I  
looked like the best one they testid so far. Burt tolld him  
Miss Kinnian rekemmended me the best from all the people  
who she was teaching at the center for retarted adults.  
Where I go.  
Dr Strauss said I had something that was very good.  
He said I had a good motor-vation. I never even knowed I  
had that. I felt good when he said not everbody with an  
eye-Q of 68 had that thing like I had it. I dont know what  
it is or where I got it but he said Algernon had it too. Algemons motor-vation is the chees they put in his box. But  
it cant be only that because I dint have no chees this week.  
ProfNemur was worryd about my eye-Q getting too  
high from mine that was too low and I woud get sick from  
it. And Dr Strauss tolld Prof Nemur somthing I dint understand so wile they was talking I rote down some of the  
words in my notebook for keeping my progris riports.  
He said Harold thats Prof Nemurs &ist name I know  
Charlie is not what you had in mind as the &ist of your new  
breed of intelek** coudnt get the word *** superman. But  
most people of his low ment** are host** and uncoop**  
9   
they are usally dull and apathet** and hard to reach.  
Charlie has a good natcher and hes intristed and eeger to  
pleese.  
Then prof Nemur said remembir he will be the first  
human beeing ever to have his intelijence increesd by  
sergery. Dr Strauss said thats cxakly what I ment. Where  
will we find another retarted adult with this tremendus  
motor-vation to lem. Look how well he has lemed to reed  
and rite for his low mente! age. A tremen** achev**  
I dint get all the werds and they were talking to fast  
but it sounded like Dr Strauss and Burt was on my side  
and ProfNemur wasnt.  
Burt kept saying Alice Kinnian feels he has an overwhelm** desir to lern. He aktually beggd to be used. And  
thats true because I wantid to be smart. Dr Strauss got up  
and walkd around and said I say we use Charlie. And Burt  
noded. Prof Nemur skratchd his head and rubbd his nose  
with his thum and said mabye your rite. We will use Charlie. But weve got to make him understand that a lot of  
things can go wrong with the cx.peramint.  
When he said that I got so happy and exited I jumpd  
up and shaked his hand for being so good to me. I think  
he got skared when I did that.  
He said Charlie we werked on this for a long time but  
only on animils like Algernon. We are sure thers no fisical  
danger for you but there are other things we cant tell until  
we try it. I want you to understand this mite fale and then  
nothing woud happen at all. Or it mite even sucseed temperary and leeve you werse off then you are now. Do you  
IO   
understand what that meens. If that happins we will have  
to send you bak to the Warren state home to live.  
I said I dint care because I aint afraid of nothing. 1m  
very strong and I always do good and beside I got my luky  
rabits foot and I never breakd a mirrir in my life. I droppd  
some dishis once but that dont count for bad luk.  
Then Dr Strauss said Charlie even if this fales your  
making a grate contribyushun to sience. This cxperimint  
has been successful on lots of animils but its never bin tride  
on a humen beeing. You will be the first.  
I told him thanks doc you wont be sorry for giving me  
my 2nd chanse like Miss Kinnian says. And I meen it like  
I tolld them. After the operashun 1m gonna try to be  
smart. 1m gonna try awful hard.  
pro1Jrls rlport 6th Mar 8  
1m skared. Lots of pepul who werk at the collidge and  
the pepul at the medicil school came to wish me luk. Burt  
the tester brot me some Bowers he said they were &om the  
pepul at the psych departmint. He wished me luk. I hope  
I have luk. I got my rabits foot and my luky penny and my  
horshoe. Dr Strauss said dont be so superstishus Charlie.  
This is sience. I dont no what sience is but they all keep  
saying it so mabye its something that helps you have good  
luk. Anyway 1m keeping my rabits foot in one hand and  
my luky penny in the other hand with the hole in it. The  
penny I meen. I wish I coud take the horshoe with me to  
but its hevy so Ill just leeve it in my jaket.  
n   
Joe Carp from the bakery brot me a chokilat cake  
from Mr Donner and the folks at the bakery and they  
hope I get better soon. At the bakery they think 1m sick  
becaus thats what Prof Nemur said I shoud tell them and  
nothing about an operashun for getting smart. Thats a  
secrit until after in case it dont werk or something goes  
wrong.  
Then Miss Kinnian came to see me and she brout me  
some magizenes to reed, and she lookd kind of nervus and  
skared. She 6xd up the flowres on my tabe1 and put evrything nice and neet not messd up like I made it. And she  
6xd the pilow under my hed. She likes me alot becaus I try  
very hard to lem evrything not like some of the pepul at  
the adult center who dont reely care. She wants me to get  
smart. I know.  
Then Prof Nemur said I cant have any more visiters  
becaus I got to rest. I askd Prof Nemur if I coud beet Algernon in the race after the operashun and he sayd mabye.  
If the operashun werks good Ill show that mouse I can be  
as smart as he is even smarter. Then Ill be abel to reed better and spell the werds good and know lots of things and  
be like other pepul. Boy that woud serprise everyone. If the  
operashun werks and I get smart mabye Ill be abel to find  
my mom and dad and sister and show them. Boy woud  
they be serprised to see me smart just like them and my  
sister.  
Prof Nemur says if it werks good and its perminent  
they will make other pepul like me smart also. Mabye  
pepul all over the werld. And he said that meens 1m doing  
12\.   
somthing grate for sience and m be famus and my name  
will go down in the books. I dont care so much about beeing famus. I just want to be smart like other pepul so I can  
have lots of frends who like me.  
They dint give me anything to eat today. I dont know  
what eating got to do with gering smart and 1m hungry.  
Prof Nemur took away my choklate cake. That Prof  
Nemur is a growch. Dr. Strauss says I can have it back after  
the operashun. You cant eat before a operashun. Not even  
cheese.  
PROGRESS REPORT 7 MARCH 11  
The operashun dint hert. Dr. Strauss did it while I was  
sleeping. I dont know how because I dint see but there was  
bandiges on my eyes and my head for 3 days so I couldnt  
make no PROGRESS REPORT till today. The skinny nerse  
who wached me riting says I spelld PROGRESS rong and she  
tolld me how to spell it and REPORT to and MARCH. I got  
to remembir that. I have a very bad memary for speling.  
Anyway they took off the bandiges from my eyes today so  
I can make a PROGRESS REPORT now. But there is still some  
bandigis on my head.  
I was skared when they came in and tolld me it was  
time to go for the operashun. They maid me get out of the  
bed and on another bed that has weds on it and they rolld  
me out of the room and down the hall to the door that  
says sergery. Boy was I serprised that it was a big room with  
green walls and lots of docters sitting around up high all  
13   
around the room waching the operashun. I dint no it was  
going to be like a show.  
A man came up to the tabel all in wire and with a wire  
cloth on his face like in TV shows and rubber glovs and he  
said rilax Charlie its me Dr Strauss. I said hi doc 1m  
skared. He said theres nothing to be skared about Charlie  
he said youll just go to sleep. I said thats what 1m skared  
about. He patted my head and then 2 other men waring  
wire masks too came and straped my arms and legs down  
so I coudnt move them and that maid me very skared and  
my stomack feeled tire like I was gone to make all over but  
I dint only wet a littel and I was gone to cry but they put  
a rubber thing on my face for me to breeth in and it smelld  
funny. All the time I herd Dr Strauss talking out loud  
about the operashun telling evrybody what he was gonna  
do. But I dint understand anything about it and I was  
thinking mabye after the operashun Ill be smart and Ill understand all the things hes talking about. So I breethed  
deep and then I gess I was very tired becase I went to sleep.  
When I waked up I was back in my bed and it was  
very dark. I coudnt see nothing but I herd some talking. It  
was the nerse and Burt and I said whats the matter why  
dont you put on the lites and when are they gonna operate. And they laffed and Burt said Charlie its all over. And  
its dark because you got bandijis over your eyes.  
Its a funny thing. They did it while I was sleeping.  
Burt comes in to see me evry day to rite down all the  
things like my tempertur and my blud preshur and the  
other things about me. He says its on acount of the sien-  
tific methid. They got to keep reckerds about what happins so they can do it agen when they want to. Not to me  
but to the other pepullike me who aint smart.  
Thats why I got to do these pregis- progress reports.  
Burt says its part of the esperimint and they will make fotastats of the fltl- reports to study them so they will know  
what is going on in my mind. I dont see how they will  
know what is going on in my mind by looking at these reports. I read them over and over a lot of times to see what  
I rote and I dont no whats going on in my mind so how  
are they going to.  
But anyway thats sience and I got to try to be smart  
like other pepul. Then when I am smart they will talk to  
me and I can sit with them and listen like Joe Carp and  
Frank and Gimpy do when they talk and have a discushen  
about importent things. While their werking they start  
talking about things like about god or about the truble  
with all the mony the presedint is spending or about the  
ripublicans and demicrats. And they get all excited like  
their gonna have a fi.te so Mr Donner got to come in and  
tell them to get back to baking or theyll all get canned  
union or no union. I want to talk about things like that.  
If your smart you can have lots of frends to talk to and  
you never get !onley by yourself all the time.  
ProfNemur says its ok to tell about all the things that  
happin to me in the progress reports but he says I shoud  
rite more about what I feel and what I think and remembir about the past. I tolld him I dont know how to think  
or remembir and he said just try.  
IS   
All the time the bandiges were on my eyes I tryed to  
think and remembir but nothing happined. I dont know  
what to think or remembir about. Maybe if I ask him he  
will tell me how I can think now that 1m suppose to get  
smart. What do smart pepul think about or remembir.  
Fancy things I bet. I wish I new some fancy things alredy.  
MJwd J2.-l dont have to rite PROGRESS REPOKI' on top  
evry day just when I start a new batch after Prof Nemur  
takes the old ones away. I just have to put the date on top.  
That saves time. Its a good idea. I can sit up in bed and look  
out the window at the gras and trees outside. The skinney  
nerses name is Hilda and she is very good to me. She brings  
me things to eat and she fixes my bed and she says I was a  
very brave man to let them do things to my hed. She says  
she woud never let them do things to her branes for all the  
tea in china. I tolld her it wasnt for tea in china. It was to  
make me smart. And she said mabey they got no rite to  
make me smart because if god wantid me to be smart he  
would have made me born that way. And what about Adem  
and Eev and the sin with the tree of nowlege and eating the  
appel and the fall. And mabey ProfNemur and Dr Strauss  
was tampiring with things they got no rite to tampir with.  
She's very skinney and when she talks her face gets all  
red. She says mabey I better prey to god to ask him to forgiv what they done to me. I dint eat no appels or do nothing sinful. And now 1m skared. Mabey I shoudnt of let  
them oparate on my branes like she said if its agenst god. I  
dont want to make god angrey.  
16   
March 13-They changed my nerse today. This one is  
pritty. Her name is Lucille she showd me how to spell it  
for my progress report and she got yellow hair and blew  
eyes. I askd her where was Hilda and she said Hilda wasnt  
werking in that part of the hospitil no more. Only in the  
matimity ward by the babys where it dont matter if she  
talks too much.  
When I askd her about what was matirnity she said its  
about having babys but when I askd her how they have  
them she got red in the face just the same like Hilda and  
she said she got to take sombodys temperchure. Nobody  
ever tells me about the babys. Mabye if this thing werks  
and I get smart Ill find out.  
Miss Kinnian came to see me today and she said  
Charlie you look wonderful. I tolld her I feel fine but I  
dont feel smart yet. I thot that when the operashun was  
over and they took the bandijis off my eyes Id be smart  
and no a lot of things so I coud read and talk about importent things like evryebody else.  
She said thats not the way it werks Charlie. It comes  
slowley and you have to werk very hard to get smart.  
I dint no that. If I got to werk hard anyway what did  
I have to have the operashun for. She said she wasnt sure  
but the operashun was to make it so that when I did werk.  
hard to get smart it woud stick with me and not be like it  
was before when it dint stick so good.  
Well I tolld her that made me kind of feel bad because  
I thot I was going to be smart rite away and I coud go back  
to show the guys at the bakery how smart I am and talk   
with them about things and mabye even get to be an assistint baker. Then I was gone to try and find my mom and  
dad. They woud be serprised to see how smart I got because my mom always wanted me too be smart to. Mabey  
they woudnt send me away no more if they see how smart  
I am. I tolld Miss Kinnian I would try hard to be smart as  
hard as I can. She pattid my hand and said I no you will. I  
have fayth in you Charlie.  
PROGRESS REPORT 8  
MtWCh 15-Im out of the hospitil but not back at werk  
yet. Nothing is happining. I had lots of tests and differint  
kinds of races with Algernon. I hate that mouse. He always  
beets me. ProfNemur says I got to play those games and I  
got to take those tests over and over agen.  
Those amau:s are stoopid. And those picturs are  
stoopid to. I like to drawer the picturs of a man and  
woman but I wont make up lies about pepul.  
And I cant do the puzzels good.  
I get headakes from trying to think and remembir so  
much. Dr Strauss promised he was going to hdp me but  
he dont. He dont tell me what to think or when ill get  
smart. He just makes me lay down on a couch and talk.  
Miss Kinnian comes to see me at the collidge too. I  
tolld her nothing was happining. When am I going to get  
smart. She said you got to be pashent Charlie these things  
take time. It will happin so slowley you wont know its happening. She said Burt tolld her I was comming along fine.   
I still think those races and those tests are stoopid and  
I think riting these progress reports are stoopid to.  
MMciJ 16-1 ate lunch with Burt at the collidge resterant.  
They got all kinds of good food and I dont have to pay for  
it neither. I like to sit and wach the collidge boys and girls.  
They fool around somtimes but mostly they talk about all  
kinds of things just like the bakers do at Donners bakery.  
Burt says its about art and polatics and riligon. I dont  
know what those things are about but I know riligon is  
god. Mom use to tell me all about him and the things he  
done to make the werld. She said I shoud always love god  
and prey to him. I dont remembir how to prey to him but  
I think mom use to make me prey to him a lot when I was  
a kid that he shoud make me get better and not be sick. I  
dont rimember how I was sick. I think it was about me not  
being smart.  
Anyway Burt says if the experimint werks Ill be able to  
understand all those things the srudints are talking about  
and I said do you think Ill be smart like them and he laffed  
and said those kids arent so smart youll pass them as if  
their standing still.  
He interduced me to alot of the srudints and some of  
them look at me funny like I dont belong in a collidge. I  
almost forgot and started to tell them I was going to be  
very smart soon like them but Burt intiruppted and he  
tolld them I was cleaning the psych deparanent lab. Later  
he explaned to me their mussent be any publisity. That  
meens its a seecrit.  
19   
I dont redy understand why I got to keep it a seecrit.  
Burt says its in case theirs a faleure ProfNemur dont want  
everybody to laff espeshully the pepul from the Welberg  
foundashun who gave him the mony for the projekt. I said  
I dont care if pepullaff at me. Lots of pepullaff at me and  
their my frends and we have fun. Burt put his arm on my  
sholder and said its not you Nemurs worryd about. He  
dont want pepul to laff at him.  
I dint think pepul would laff at Prof Nemur because  
hes a sientist in a collidge but Bert said no sientist is a grate  
man to his colleegs and his gradulate studints. Burt is a  
gradulate srudint and he is a majer in psychology like the  
name on the door to the lab. I dint know they had majers  
in collidge. I thot it was onley in the army.  
Anyway I hope I get smart soon because I want to lern  
everything there is in the werld like the collidge boys  
know. All about art and politiks and god.  
MArch 17-When I waked up this morning rite away I  
thot I was gone to be smart but 1m not. Evry morning I  
think 1m gone to be smart but nothing happins. Mabye  
the cxperimint dint werk. Maby I wont get smart and Ill  
have to go live at the Warren home. I hate the tests and I  
hate the amauds and I hate Algernon.  
I never new before that I was dumber than a mouse. I  
dont fed like riting any more progress reports. I forget  
things and even when I rite them in my notbook so~etimes I cant reed my own riting and its very hard. Miss  
Kinnian says have pashents but I feel sick and tired. And I  
20   
get headakes all the time. I want to go back to werk in the  
bakery and not rite pregris progress reports any more.  
MArch 20-Im going back to werk at the bakery. Dr  
Strauss told Prof Nemur it was better I shoud go back to  
werk but I still cant tell anyone what the operashun was for  
and I have to come to the lab for 2 hrs evry nite after werk  
for my tests and keep riting these dumb reports. They are  
going to pay me evry week like for a part time job because  
that was part of the arraingment when they got the mony  
from the Welberg foundashun. I still dont know what that  
Wdberg thing is. Miss Kinnian explaned me but I still  
dont get it. So if I dint get smart why are they paying me  
to rite these dumb things. If their gonna pay me Ill do it.  
But its very hard to rite.  
1m glad 1m going back to werk because I miss my job  
at the bakery and all my frends and all the fun we have.  
Dr. Strauss says I shoud keep a notbook in my pockit  
for things I remembir. And I dont have to do the progress  
reports every day just when I think of somthing or somthing  
speshul happins. I told him nothing speshul ever happins  
to me and it dont look like this speshul experimint is going  
to happin neither. He says dont get discouriged Charlie  
because it takes a long time and it happins slow and you  
cant notise it rite away. He explaned how it took a long  
time with Algernon before he got 3 times smarter then he  
was before.  
Thats why Algernon beats me all the time in that  
amaze race because he had that operashun too. Hes a   
speshul mouse the 1st animil to stay smart so long after the  
operashun. I dint know he was a speshul mouse. That makes  
it diffiint. I coud probaly do that amazed faster then a reglar  
mouse. Maybe some day m beat Algernon. Boy woud that  
be somthing. Dr Strauss says that so &r Algernon looks like  
he mite be smart permanint and he says thats a good sine  
becaus we both had the same kind of operashun.  
March 21-We had a lot of fun at the bakery today. Joe  
Carp said hey look where Charlie had his operashun what  
did they do Charlie put some brains in. I was going to tell  
him about me getting smart but I remembered Prof  
Nemur said no. Then Frank Reilly said what did you do  
Charlie open a door the hard way. That made me laff.  
Their my &ends and they really like me.  
Their is a lot of werk to catch up. They dint have anyone to clean out the place because that was my job but  
they got a new boy Ernie to do the diliveries that I always  
done. Mr. Donner said he decided not to fire him for a  
while to give me a chanse to rest up and not werk so hard.  
I told him I was alright and I can make my diliveries and  
clean up like I always done but Mr. Donner says we will  
keep the boy.  
I said so what am I gonna do. And Mr. Donner patted me on the shoulder and says Charlie how old are you.  
I told him 32 years going on 33 my next brithday. And  
how long you been here he said. I told him I dint know.  
He said you came here seventeen years ago. Your Uncle  
Herman god rest his sole was my best frend. He brout you   
in here and he askd me to let you werk here and look after  
you as best I coud. And when he died 2 years later and  
your mother had you comited to the Warren home I got  
them to releese you on outside werk placmint. Seventeen  
years its been Charlie and I want you to know that the  
bakery bisness is not so good but like I always said you got  
a job here for the rest of your life. So dont worry about me  
bringing in somebody to take your place. Youll never have  
to go back to that Warren home.  
I aint worryd only what does he need Ernie for to  
diliver and werk around here when I was always deliviring  
the pack.iges good. He says the boy needs the mony Charlie so 1m going to keep him on as an aprentise to lem him  
to be a baker. You can be his asistent and hdp him out on  
diliverys when he needs it.  
I never was a asistent before. Ernie is very smart but the  
other pepul in the· bakery dont like him so much. Their all  
my good frends and we have lots of jokes and lafiS here.  
Some times somebody will say hey lookit Frank, or  
Joe or even Gimpy. He really pulled a Charlie Gordon that  
time. I dont know why they say it but they always lafF and  
I lafF too. This morning Gimpy hes the head baker and  
he has a bad foot and he limps he used my name when he  
shouted at Ernie because Ernie losst a birthday cake. He  
said Ernie for godsake you trying to be a Charlie Gordon.  
I dont know why he said that. I never lost any pack.iges.  
I askd Mr Donner if I coud lem to be an aprentise  
baker like Ernie. I told him I coud lem it if he gave me a  
chanse.   
Mr Donner looked at me for a long time funny because I gess I dont talk so much most of the time. And  
Frank herd me and he lafFed and lafFed until Mr Donner  
told him to shut up and go tend to his oven. Then Mr  
Donner said to me theirs lots of time for that Charlie. A  
bakers werk is very importint and very complikated and  
you shoudnt worry about things like that.  
I wish I coud tell him and all the other people about  
my real operashun. I wish it woud redy work alredy so I  
coud get smart like evrybody dse.  
Mtweh 24-ProfNemur and Dr Strauss came to my room  
tonight to see why I dont come in to the lab like I am suppose to. I told them I dont want to race with Algernon no  
more. Prof Nemur said I dont have to for a while but I  
shoud come in any way. He brout me a presint only it  
wasnt a presint but just for lend. He said its a teeching  
mashine that werks like TY. It talks and makes picturs and  
I got to tern it on just before I go to sleep. I said your kidding. Why shoud I tern on a TV before I go to sleep. But  
ProfNemur said if I want to get smart I got to do what he  
says. So I told him I dint think I was gain to get smart  
anyway.  
Then Dr. Strauss came over and put his hand on my  
sholder and said Charlie you dont know it yet but your  
getting smarter all the time. You wont notise it for a while  
like you dont notise how the hour hand on a clock moves.  
Thats the way it is with the changes in you. They are happining so slow you cant tdl. But we can follow it &om the   
tests and the way you act and talk and your progress reports. He said Charlie youve got to have fayth in us and in  
yoursel£ We cant be sure it will be permanint but we are  
confidant that soon your going to be a very intellijent  
young man.  
I said okay and Prof Nemur showed me how to werk  
the TV that reely wasnt a TY. I askd him what did it do.  
First he lookd sore again because I asked him to explane  
me and he said I shoud just do what he told me. But Dr  
Strauss said he shoud explane it to me because I was beginning to questien authorety. I dont no what that meens  
but ProfNemur looked like he was going to bite his lip off.  
Then he explaned me very slow that the mashine did lots  
of things to my mind. Somethings it did just before I fall  
asleep like teach me things when 1m very sleepy and a little  
while after I start to fall asleep I still hear the talk even if I  
dont see the picturs anymore. Other things is at nite its  
suppose to make me have dreams and remembir things  
that happened a long time ago when I was a very littel kid.  
Its scary.  
Oh yes I forgot. I asked Prof Nemur when I can go  
back to Miss Kinnians class at the adult center and he said  
soon Miss Kinnian will come to the collidge testing center  
to teach me speshul. I am glad about that. I dint see her so  
much since the operashun but she is nice.  
March 25-That crazy TV kept me up all nite. How can  
I sleep with something yelling crazy things all night in my  
ears. And the nutty picturs. Wow. I dont know what it says   
when 1m up so how am I going to know when 1m sleeping. I asked Burt about it and he says its ok. He says my  
branes are leming just before I got to sleep and that will  
help me when Miss Kinnian starts my lessons at the testing  
center. The testing center isnt a hospitil for animils like I  
thougt before. Its a labonory for sience. I dont know what  
sience is exept 1m helping it with this experimint.  
Anyway I dont know about that Tv. I think its crazy.  
If you can get smart when your going to sleep why do  
pepul go to school. I dont think that thing will werk. I use  
to watch the late show and the late late show on TV all the  
time before I went to sleep and it never made me smart.  
Maybe only certin movies make you smart. Maybe like  
quizz shows.  
March 26-How am I gonna work in the daytime if that  
thing keeps waking me up at nite. In the middel of the nite  
I woke up and I coudnt go back to sleep because it kept  
saying mnembir ..• mnembir ••• mnembir ••• So I think I  
remembird something. I dont remembir exackly but it was  
about Miss Kinnian and the school where I lemed about  
reading. And how I went their.  
A long time ago once I asked Joe Carp how he lemed  
to read and if I coud lem to read to. He laffed like he always done when I say something funny and he says to me  
Charlie why waste your time they cant put any branes in  
where there aint none. But Fanny Birden herd me and she  
askd her cusin who is a collidge studint at Beekman and   
she told me about the adult center for retarded pepul at the  
Beekman collidge.  
She rote the name down on a paper and Frank laffed  
and said dont go getting so eddicated that you wont talk  
to your old frends. I said dont worry I will always keep  
my old frends even if I can read and rite. He was laffi.ng  
and Joe Carp was laffi.ng but Gimpy came in and told  
them to get back to making rolls. They are all good frends  
tome.  
After werk I walked over six blocks to the school and I  
was scared. I was so happy I was going to lem to read that  
I bougt a newspaper to take home with me and read after  
Ilemed.  
When I got their it was a big long hall with lots of  
pepul. I got scared of saying somthing wrong to sombody  
so I startid to go home. But I dont know why I temed  
around and went inside agen.  
I wated until most everbody went away exept some  
pepul going over by a big timedock like the one we have at  
the bakery and I asked the lady if I coud lern to read and  
rite because I wanted to read all the things in the newspaper and I showed it to her. She was Miss Kinnian but I  
dint know it then. She said if you come back tomorow and  
rejister I will start to teach you how to read. But you got to  
understand it will take a long time maybe years to lem to  
read. I told her I dint know it took so long but I wantid  
to lem anyway because I made believe a lot of times. I  
meen I pretend to pepul I know how to read but it aint  
true and I wantid to lern.   
She shaked my hand and said glad to meet you Mistre  
Gordon. I will be your teacher. My name is Miss Kinnian.  
So thats wear I went to lern and thats how I met Miss  
Kinnian.  
Thinking and remembiring is hard and now I dont  
sleep so good any more. That 1V is too loud.  
March 27-Now that 1m starting to have those dreams  
and remembiring ProfNemur says I got to go to theripy sesions with Dr Strauss. He says theripy sesions is like when  
you feel bad you talk to make it better. I tolld him I dont  
feel bad and I do plenty of talking all day so why do I have  
to go to theripy but he got sore and says I got to go anyway.  
What theripy is is that I got to lay down on a couch  
and Dr. Strauss sits in a chair near me and I talk about  
anything that comes into my head. For a long time I dint  
say nothing because I coudnt think of nothing to say.  
Then I told him about the bakery and the things they do  
there. But its silly for me to go to his office and lay down  
on the couch to talk because I rite it down in the progress  
reports anyway and he could read it. So today I brout the  
progress report with me and I told him maybe he could  
just read it and I could take a nap on the couch. I was very  
tired because that 1V kept me up all nite but he said no it  
dont work that way. I got to talk. So I talked but then I reil  
asleep on the couch anyway:-rite in the middle.  
Mlmh 28-1 got a headake. Its not from that 1V this  
time. Dr Strauss showed me how to keep the 1V turned   
low so now I can sleep. I dont hear a thing. And I still dont  
understand what it says. A few times I play it over in the  
morning to find out what I lemed before I fell asleep and  
while I was sleeping and I dont even know the words.  
Maybe its another langwidge or something. But most  
times it sounds american. But it talks too fast.  
I askd Dr Strauss what good is it to get smart in my  
sleep if I want to be smart when Im awake. He says its the  
same thing and I have two minds. Theres the SUBCONSCious anti the coNsCious (thats how you spell it) and one  
dont tell the other what its doing. They dont even talk to  
each other. Thats why I dream. And boy have I been having crazy dreams. Wow. Ever since that night Tv. The late  
late late late late movie show.  
I forgot to ask Dr Strauss if it was only me or if everybody has two minds like that.  
(I just looked up the word in the dicshunery Dr Strauss  
gave me. SUBCONSCIOUS. adj. Of the nature of mental operalions yet not present in consciousness; as. subconscious conjlia of  
desires.) Theres more but I still dont know what it meens.  
This isnt a very good dicshunery for dumb people like me.  
Anyway the headake is from the party. Joe Carp and  
Frank Rcilly invited me to go with them after work to Hallorans Bar for some drinks. I dont like to drink wiskey but  
they said we will have lots of fun. I had a good time. We  
played games with me doing a dance on the top of the bar  
with a lampshade on my head and everyone laffing.  
Then Joe Carp said I shoud show the girls how I mop  
out the toilet in the bakery and he got me a mop. I showed   
them and everyone laffed when I told them that Mr Donner said I was the best janiter and errand boy he ever had  
because I like my job and do it good and never come late  
or miss a day crept for my operashun.  
I said Miss Kinnian always told me Charlie be proud  
of the work you do because you do your job good.  
Everybody laffed and Frank said that Miss Kinnian  
must be some cracked up piece if she goes for Charlie and  
Joe said hey Charlie are you making out with her. I said I  
dint know what that meens. They gave me lots of drinks  
and Joe said Charlie is a card when hes potted. I think that  
means they like me. We have some good times but I cant  
wait to be smart like my best frends Joe Carp and Frank  
Reilly.  
I dont remember how the party was over but they  
asked me to go around the comer to see if it was raining  
and when I came back there was no one their. Maybe they  
went to find me. I looked for them all over till it was late.  
But I got lost and I felt bad at myself for getting lost because I bet Algernon coud go up and down those meets a  
hundrid times and not get lost like I did.  
Then I dont remember so good but Mrs Flynn says a  
nice poleecman brought me back home.  
That same nite I dreamed about my mother and father only I coudnt see her &ce it was all wite and she was  
blurry. I was crying because we were in a big departmint  
store and I was losst and I coudnt find them and I ran up  
and down the rows around all the big cownters in the  
30   
store. Then a man came and took me in a big room with  
benches and gave me a lolypop and tolld me a big boy like  
me shoudnt cry because my mother and father woud come  
to find me.  
Anyway thats the dream and I got a headake and a big  
lump on my head and black and blue marks all over. Joe  
Carp says mabye I got rolled or the cop let me have it. I  
dont think poleccmen do things like that. But anyway I  
dont think m drink wiskey anymore.  
MMdJ 29--I beet Algernon. I dint even know I beet him  
until Burt Sdden told me. Then the second time I lost because I got so exited. But after that I beet him 8 more  
times. I must be getting smart to beat a smart mouse like  
Algernon. But I dont feel smarter.  
I wanted to race some more but Burt said thats  
enough for one day. He let me hold Algernon for a minit.  
Algernon is a nice mouse. Soft like cotton. He blinks and  
when he opens his eyes their black and pink on the eges.  
I asked can I feed him because I fdt bad to beat him  
and I wanted to be nice and make frends. Burt said no Algernon is a very speshul mouse with an operashun like  
mine. He was the first of all the animals to stay smart so  
long and he said that Algernon is so smart he has to solve  
a problem with a lock that changes every time he goes in  
to eat so he has to lem something new to get his food.  
That made me sad because if he coudnt lem he woudnt be  
able to eat and he would be hungry.   
I dont think its right to make you pass a test to eat.  
How woud Burt like to have to pass a test every time he  
wants to eat. I think m be frends with Algernon.  
That reminds me. Dr Strauss says I shoud write down  
all my dreams and the things I think so when I come to his  
office I can tell them. I tolld him I dont know how to  
think yet but he says he means more things like what I  
wrote about my mom and dad and about when I started  
school at Miss Kinnians or anything that happened before  
the operation is thinking and I wrote them in my progress  
report.  
I didnt know I was thinking and remembering.  
Maybe that means something is happining to me. I dont  
feel different but 1m so exited I cant sleep.  
Dr Strauss gave me some pink pills to make me sleep  
good. He says I got to get lots of sleep because thats when  
most of the changes happin in my brane. It must be true  
because Uncle Herman use to sleep in our house all the  
time when he was out of werk on the old sofa in the parler. He was fat and it was hard for him to get a job because  
he use to paint pepuls houses and he got very slow going  
up and down the ladder.  
When I once tolld my mom I wantid to be a painter  
like Uncle Herman my sister Norma said yeah Charlies  
going to be the artist of the family. And dad slappd her  
face and tolld her not to be so goddam nasty to her  
brother. I dont no what a artist is but if Norma got slappd  
for saying it I gess its not a nice thing. I always feeled bad   
when Norma got slappd for being meen to me. When I get  
smart m go visit her.  
March 30-Tonite after werk Miss Kinnian came to the  
teeching room near the labatory. She looked glad to see me  
but nervus. She looks yunger then I remembired her. I  
tolld her I was trying very hard to be smart. She said I have  
confidense in you Charlie the way you strugled so much to  
reed and rite better then all the others. I know you can do  
it. At werst you will have it all for a little wile and your  
doing somthing for other retarded pepul.  
We startid to reed a very hard book. I never red such  
a hard book before. Its called Robinson Crusoe about a  
man who gets merooned on a dessert iland. Hes smart  
and figgers out all kinds of things so he can have a  
house and food and hes a good swimmer. Only I feel  
sorry for him because hes all alone and he has no frends.  
But I think their must be somebody else on the iland because theres a picture of him with his funny umbrela  
looking at feetprints. I hope he gets a frend and not be so  
lonely.  
MArch 31-Miss Kinnian teeches me how to spel better.  
She says look at a werd and close your eyes and say it over  
and over again until you remember. I have lots of truble  
with through that you say THREW and enough and tough  
that you dont say ENEW and TEW. You got to say ENUPP  
and TUPP. Thats how I use to rite it before I started to get  
33   
smart. 1m mixd up but Miss Kinnian says dont worry  
spelling is not suppose to make sence.  
PROGRESS REPORT 9  
April J.-Everbody in the bakery came to see me today  
where I started my new job working by the dough-mixer.  
It happined like this. Oliver who works on the mixer quit  
yesterday. I used to hdp him out before bringing the bags  
of flour over for him to put in the mixer. Anyway I dint  
know that I knew how to work the mixer. Its very hard and  
Oliver went to bakers school for one year before he could  
learn how to be an assistint baker.  
But Joe Carp hes my &iend he said Charlie why dont  
you take over Olivers job. Everybody on the floor came  
around and they were WF laughing and Frank Reilly said  
yes Charlie you been here long -e&d enough. Go ahead.  
Gimpy aint around and he wont know you tryed it. I was  
scared because Gimpy is the head baker and he told me  
never to go near the mixer because I would get hurt.  
Everyone said do it exept Fannie Birden who said stop it  
why dont you leave the poor man alone.  
Frank Reilly said shut up Fanny its April fools day and  
if Charlie works on the mixer he might fix it good so we  
will all have the day off. I said I coudnt fix the mashine but  
I could work it because I been watching Oliver ever since I  
got back.  
I worked the dough-mixer and everybody was surprised espeshully Frank Reilly. Fanny Birden got exited be"-  
cause she said it took Oliver 2 years to learn how to mix  
the dough right and he went to bakers school. Bernie Bate  
who hdps on the mashine said I did it faster then Oliver  
did and better. Nobody laffed. When Gimpy came back  
and Fanny told him he got sore at me for working on the  
mixer.  
But she said watch him and see how he does it. They  
were playing him for an April Fool joke and he foold them  
instead. Gimpy watched and I knew he was sore at me because he dont like when people dont do what he tdls them  
just like ProfNemur. But he saw how I worked the mixer  
and he skratched his head and said I see it but I dont believe it. Then he called Mr Donner and told me to work it  
again so Mr Donner could see it.  
I was scared he was going to be angry and holler at me  
so after I was finished I said can I go back to my own job  
now. I got to sweep out the front of the bakery behind the  
counter. Mr Donner looked at me funny for a long time.  
Then he said this must be some kind of April fools joke  
you guys are playing on me. Whats the catch.  
Gimpy said thats what I thought it was some kind of  
a gag. He limped all around the mashine and he said to Mr  
Donner I dont understand it either but Charlie knows  
how to handle it and I got to admit it he does a better job  
then Oliver.  
Everybody was crowded around and talking about it  
and I got scared because they all looked at me funny and  
they were exited. Frank said I told you there is something  
peculier latdy about Charlie. And Joe Carp says yeah J  
3S   
know what you mean. Mr Donner sent everybody back to  
work and he took me out to the front of the store with  
him.  
He said Charlie I dont know how you done it but it  
looks like you finally learned something. I want you to be  
carefull and do the best you can do. You got yourself a new  
job with a 5 doller raise.  
I said I dont want a new job because I like to clean up  
and sweep and deliver and do things for my friends but Mr  
Donner said never mind your friends I need you for this job.  
I dont think much of a man who dont want to advance.  
I said whats advance mean. He scratched his head and  
looked at me over his glasses. Never mind that Charlie.  
From now on you work that mixer. Thats advance.  
So now instead of delivering packiges and washing out  
the toilets and dumping the garbage. 1m the new mixer.  
Thats advance. Tomorrow I will tell Miss Kinnian. I think  
she will be happy but I dont know why Frank and Joe are  
mad at me. I asked Fanny and she said never mind those  
fools. This is April Fools day and the joke backfired and  
made them the fools instead of you.  
I asked Joe to tell me what was the joke that backfired  
and he said go jump in the lake. I guess their mad at me  
because I worked the mashine but they didnt get the day  
off like they thought. Does that mean 1m getting smarter.  
April3-Fmished Robinson Crusoe. I want to find out  
more about what happens to him but Miss Kinnian says  
thats all there is. WHY.   
April 4-Miss Kinnian says 1m learning fast. She read  
some of my progress reports and she looked at me kind of  
funny. She says 1m a fine person and m show them all. I  
asked her why. She said never mind but I shouldnt feel bad  
if I find out that everybody isnt nice like I think. She said  
for a person who God gave so little to you did more than  
a lot of people with brains they never even used. I said that  
all my friends are smart people and their good. They like  
me and they never did anything that wasnt nice. Then she  
got something in her eye and she had tO run out to the  
ladys room.  
While I was sitting in the teaching room waiting for  
her I was wondering about how Miss Kinnian was a nice  
lady like my mother use to be. I think I remember my  
mother told me to be good and always be friendly to  
people. She said but always be careful because some people  
dont understand and they might think you are trying to  
make trouble.  
That makes me remember when mom had to go away  
and they put me to stay in Mrs I..eroys house who lived  
next door. Mom went to the hospital. Dad said she wasnt  
sick or nothing but she went to the hospital to bring me  
back a baby sister or a brother. (I still dont know how they  
do that) I told them I want a baby brother to play with and  
I dont know why they got me a sister instead but she was  
nice like a doll. Only she cryd all the time.  
I never hurt her or nothing.  
They put her in a crib in their room and once I heard  
Dad say dont worry Charlie wouldnt harm her.  
37   
She was like a bundle all pink and screaming sometimes that I couldnt sleep. And when I went to sleep she  
woke me up in the nighttime. One time when they were in  
the kitchen and I was in my bed she was crying. I got up  
to pick her up and hold her to get quiet the way mom  
does. But then Mom came in yelling and took her away.  
And she slapped me so hard I fell on the bed.  
Then she startid screaming. Dont you ever touch her  
again. Youll hurt her. Shes a baby. You got no business  
touching her. I dint know it then but I guess I know it now  
that she thought I was going to hurt the baby because I  
was too dumb to know what I was doing. Now that makes  
me feel bad because I would never of hurt the baby.  
When I go to Dr Straus office I got to tell him about  
that.  
April ~Today, I learned, the comma. this is, a, comma  
(,) a period, with, a tail, Miss Kinnian, says its, importent,  
because, it makes writing, better, she said, somebody,  
could lose, a lot, of money, if a comma, isnt in, the right,  
place, I got, some money, that I, saved from, my job, and  
what, the foundation, pays me, but not, much and, I dont,  
see how, a comma, keeps, you from, losing it,  
But, she says, everybody, uses commas, so m, use  
them, too,,  
April7--I used the comma wrong. Its punctuation. Miss  
Kinnian told me to look up long words in the dictionary  
to learn to spell them. I said whats the difference if you can   
read it anyway. She said its part of your education so from  
now on Illlobk up all the words 1m not sure how to spelL  
It takes a long time to write that way but I think 1m remembering more and more.  
Anyway thats how come I got the word punctuation  
right. Its that way in the dictionary. Miss Kinnian says a  
period is punctuation too, and there are lots of other marks  
to learn. I told her I thought she meant all the periods had  
to have tails and be called commas. But she said no.  
She said; You, got. to-mix?them!up: She showd? me"  
how, to mix! them; up, and now! I can. mix (up all? kinds  
of punctuation- in, my. writing! There" are lots, of rules;  
to learn? but. Im' get'ting them in my head:  
One thing? I, like: about, Dear Miss Kinnian: (thats,  
the way? it goes; in a business, letter (if I ever go! into business?) is that, she: always; gives me' a reason" when-1 ask.  
She"s a gen'ius! I wish? I cou'd be smart-like-her;  
Punctuation, is? fun!  
.April 8-What a dope I am! I didn't even understand  
what she was talking about. I read the grammar book last  
night and it explains the whole thing. Then I saw it was  
the same way as Miss Kinnian was trying to tell me, but I  
didn't get it. I got up in the middle of the night and the  
whole thing straightened out in my mind.  
Miss Kinnian said that the TV working, just before I  
fell asleep and during the night, helped out. She said I  
reached a plateau. That's like the flat top of a hill.  
After I figured out how punctuation worked, I read  
39   
over all my old progress reports from the beginning. Boy,  
did I have crazy spelling and punctUation! I told Miss  
Kinnian I ought to go over the pages and fix all the mistakes, but she said, "No, Charlie, Professor Nemur wants  
them just as they are. That's why he lets you keep them  
after theyre photostated-to see your own progress. You're  
coming along fast, Charlie."  
That made me feel good. After the lesson I went down  
and played with Algernon. We don't race any more.  
Aprill0-1 fed sick. Not like for a doctor, but inside my  
chest it feels empty, like getting punched and a heartburn  
at the same time.  
I wasn't going to write about it, but I guess I got to,  
because it's important. Today was the first day I ever stayed  
home from work on purpose.  
Last night Joe Carp and Frank Reilly invited me to a  
party. There were lots of girls and Gimpy was there and  
Ernie too. I remembered how sick I got last time I drank  
too much, so I told Joe I didn't want to drink anything. He  
gave me a plain coke instead. It tasted funny, but I thought  
it was just a bad taste in my mouth.  
We had a lot of fun for a while.  
"Dance with Ellen," Joe said. "She'll teach you the  
steps." Then he winked at her like he had something in  
his eye.  
She said, "Why don't you leave him alone?"  
He slapped me on the back. "This is Charlie Gordon,  
my buddy, my pal. He's no ordinary guy-he's been pro-  
moted to working on the dough-mixing machine. All I did  
was ask you to dance with him and give him a good time.  
What's wrong with that?"  
He pushed me up close against her. So she danced  
with me. I fell three times and I couldn't understand why  
because no one else was dancing besides Ellen and me.  
And all the time I was tripping because somebodys foot  
was always sticking out.  
They were all around in a circle watching and laughing at the way we were doing the steps. They laughed  
harder every time I fell, and I was laughing too because it  
was so funny. But the last time it happened I didn't laugh.  
I picked myself up and Joe pushed me down again.  
Then I saw the look on Joe's &ce and it gave me a  
funny feeling in my stomach.  
"He's a scream," one of the girls said. Everybody was  
laughing.  
"Oh, you were right, Frank," choked Ellen. "He's a  
one man side show." Then she said, "Here, Charlie, have a  
fruit." She gave me an apple, but when I bit into it, it was  
fake.  
Then Frank started laughing and he said, "I told ya  
he'd eat it. C'n you imagine anyone dumb enough to eat  
wax fruit?"  
Joe said, "I ain't laughed so much since we sent him  
around the comer to see if it was raining that night we  
ditched him at Halloran's."  
Then I saw a picture that I remembered in my mind  
when I was a kid and the children in the block let me play   
with them, hide-and-go-seek and I was IT. After I counted  
up to ten over and over on my fingers I went to look for  
the others. I kept looking until it got cold and dark and I  
had to go home.  
But I never found them and I never knew why.  
What Frank said reminded me. That was the same  
thing that happened at Halloran's. And that was what Joe  
and the rest of them were doing. Laughing at me. And the  
kids playing hide-and-go-seek were playing tricks on me  
and they were laughing at me too.  
The people at the party were a bunch of blurred faces  
all looking down and laughing at me.  
"Look at him. His &.cc is red."  
"He's blushing. Charlie's blushing."  
"Hey, Ellen, what'd you do to Charlie? I never saw  
him act like this before."  
"Boy, Ellen sure got him worked up."  
I didn't know what to do or where to turn. Her rubbing up against me made me feel funny. Everyone was  
laughing at me and all of a sudden I felt naked. I wanted  
to hide myself so they wouldn't see. I ran out of the apartment. It was a large apartment house with lots of halls and  
I couldn't find my way to the staircase. I forgot all about  
the elevator. Then, after, I found the stairs and ran out into  
the street and walked for a long time before I went to my  
room. I never knew before that Joe and Frank and the others liked to have me around just to make fun of me.  
Now I know what they mean when they say "to pull a  
Charlie Gordon."   
I'm ashamed.  
And another thing. I dreamed about that girl Ellen  
dancing and rubbing up against me and when I woke up  
the sheets were wet and messy.  
April13-Still didn't go back to work at the bakery. I told  
Mrs. Flynn, my landlady, to call and tell Mr. Donner I'm  
sick. Mrs. Flynn looks at me latdy like she's scared of me.  
I think it's a good thing about finding out how everybody laughs at me. I thought about it a lot. It's because I'm  
so dumb and I don't even know when I'm doing something dumb. People think it's funny when a dumb person  
can't do things the same way they can.  
Anyway, now I know I'm getting a little smarter every  
day. I know punctuation, and I can spdl good. I like to  
look up all the hard words in the dictionary and I remember them. And I tty to write these progress reports very  
careful but that's hard to do. I am reading a lot now, and  
Miss Kinnian says I read very fast. And I even understand  
a lot of the things I'm reading about, and they stay in my  
mind. There are times when I can close my eyes and think  
of a page and it all comes back like a picture.  
But other things come into my head too. Sometimes I  
close my eyes and I see a clear piaure. Like this morning  
just after I woke up, I was laying in bed with my eyes open.  
It was like a big hole opened up in the walls of my mind  
and I can just walk through. I think its far back ••• a long  
time ago when I first started working at Donner's Bakery.  
I see the street where the bakery is. Fuzzy at first and then   
it gets patchy with some things so real they are right here  
now in front of me, and other things stay blurred, and I'm  
not sure ..••  
A little old man with a baby carriage made into a  
pushcart with a charcoal burner, and the smell of roasting chestnuts, and snow on the ground. A young fellow,  
skinny with wide eyes and a scared look on his &.ce looking up at the store sign. What does it say? Blurred letters in  
a way that don't make sense. I know now that the sign says  
DONNEll's BAKERY, but looking back in my memory at the  
sign I can't read the words through his eyes. None of the  
signs make sense. I think that fellow with the scared look  
on his &.ce is me.  
Bright neon lights. Christmas trees and sidewalk  
peddlers. People bundled in coats with collars up and  
scarves around their necks. But he has no gloves. His hands  
are cold and he puts down a heavy bundle of brown paper  
bags. He's stopping to watch the little mechanical toys that  
the peddler winds up-the tumbling bear, the dog jumping, the seal spinning a ball on its nose. Tumbling, jumping, spinning. If he had all those toys for himself he would  
be the happiest person in the world.  
He wants to ask the red-&.ced peddler, with his fingers  
sticking through the brown cotton gloves, if he can hold  
the tumbling bear for a minute, but he is afraid. He picks  
up the bundle of paper bags and puts it on his shoulder. He  
is skinny but he is strong from many years of hard work.  
•Charlie! Charlie! •.. fat heaJ barleyr   
Children circle around him laughing and teasing him  
like little dogs snapping at his feet. Charlie smiles at them.  
He would like to put down his bundle and play games  
with them, but when he thinks about it the skin on his  
back twitches and he feels the way the older boys throw  
things at him.  
Coming back to the bakery he sees some boys standing in the door of a dark hallway.  
"Hey look, there's Charlie!"  
"Hey, Charlie. What you got there? Want to shoot  
some craps?"  
"C'mere. We won't hunya."  
But there is something about the doorway-the dark  
hall, the laughing, that makes his skin twitch again. He  
tries to know what it is but all he can remember is their  
dirt and piss all over his clothes, and Uncle Herman shouting when he came home all covered with filth, and how  
Uncle Herman ran out with a hammer in his hand to find  
the boys who did that to him. Charlie backs away from the  
boys laughing in the hallway, drops the bundle. Picks it up  
again and runs the rest of the way to the bakery.  
"What took you so long, Charlie?" shouts Gimpy  
from the doorway to the back of the bakery.  
Charlie pushes through the swinging doors to the  
back of the bakery and sets down the bundle on one of the  
skids. He leans against the wall shoving his hands into his  
pockets. He wishes he had his spinner.  
He likes it back here in the bakery where the floors are  
white with flour-whiter than the sooty walls and ceiling.   
The thick soles of his own high shoes are crusted with  
white and there is white in the stitching and lace-eyes, and  
under his nails and in the cracked chapped skin of his  
hands.  
He relaxes here-squatting against the wall-leaning  
back in a way that tilts his baseball cap with .the D forward  
over his eyes. He likes the smell of flour, sweet dough,  
bread and cakes and rolls baking. The oven is crackling  
and makes him sleepy.  
Sweet ••• warm ••• sleep  
Suddenly, falling, twisting, head hitting against the  
wall. Someone has kicked his legs out from under him.  
That's all I can remember. I can see it all clearly, but I  
don't know why it happened. It's like when I used to go to  
the movies. The first time I never understood because they  
went too fast but after I saw the picture three or four times  
I used to understand what they were saying. I've got to ask  
Dr. Strauss about it.  
Aprill4-Dr. Strauss says the important thing is to keep  
recalling memories like the one I had yesterday and to  
write them down. Then when I come into his office we can  
talk about them.  
Dr. Strauss is a psychiatrist and a neurosurgeon. I  
didn't know that. I thought he was just a plain doctor. But  
when I went to his office this morning, he told me about  
how important it is for me to learn about myself so that I   
can understand my problems. I said I didn't have any  
problems.  
He laughed and then he got up from his chair and  
went to the window. "The more intelligent you become  
the more problems you'll have, Charlie. Your intelleaual  
growth is going to outstrip your emotional growth. And I  
think you'll find that as you progress, there will be many  
things you'll want to talk to me about. I just want you to  
remember that this is the place for you to come when you  
needhdp."  
I still don't know what it's all about, but he said even  
if I don't understand my dreams or memories or why I  
have them, some time in the future they're all going to  
connect up, and I'll learn more about mysel£ He said the  
important thing is to find out what those people in my  
memories are saying. It's all about me when I was a boy  
and I've got to remember what happened.  
I never knew about these things before. It's like if I get  
intelligent enough I'll understand all the words in my  
mind, and I'll know about those boys standing in the hallway, and about my Uncle Herman and my parents. But  
what he means is then I'm going to feel bad about it all and  
I might get sick in my mind.  
So I've got to come into his office twice a week now to  
talk about the things that bother me. We just sit there, and  
I talk, and Dr. Strauss listens. It's called therapy, and that  
means talking about things will make me feel better. I told  
him one of the things that bothers me is about women.  
47   
Like dancing with that girl Ellen got me all excited. So we  
talked about it and I got a funny feeling while I was talking, cold and sweaty, and a buzzing inside my head and I  
thought I was going to throw up. Maybe because I always  
thought it was dirty and bad to talk about that. But Dr.  
Strauss said what happened to me after the party was a wet  
dream, and it's a natural thing that happens to boys.  
So even if I'm getting intelligent and learning a lot of  
new things, he thinks I'm still a boy about women. It's  
confusing, but I'm going to find out all about my life •  
.Aprill.S-I'm reading a lot these days and almost everything is staying in my mind. Besides history and geography and arithmetic, Miss Kinnian says I should start  
learning foreign languages. Pro£ Nemur gave me some  
more tapes to play while I sleep. I still don't know how the  
conscious and unconscious mind works, but Dr. Strauss  
says not to worry yet. He made me promise that when I  
start learning college subjects in a couple of weeks I won't  
read any books on psychology-that is, until he gives me  
permission. He says it will confuse me and make me think  
about psychological theories instead of about my own  
ideas and feelings. But it's okay to read novels. This week  
I read The Great Gatsby, An American Tragedy. and Look  
Homeward, Angel I never knew about men and women  
doing things like that.  
Aprill6-l feel a lot better today, but I'm still angry that  
all the time people were laughing and making fun of me.   
When I become intelligent the way Pro£ Nemur says, with  
much more than twice my I.Q of70, then maybe people  
will like me and be my friends.  
I'm not sure what I.Q is anyway. Pro£ Nemur said it  
was something that measured how intelligent you werelike a scale in the drugstore weighs pounds. But Dr. StrauSS  
had a big argument with him and said an I.Q didn't weigh  
intelligence at all. He said an I.Q showed how much intelligence you could get, like the numbers on the outside of a  
measuring cup. You still had to fill the cup up with stufE  
When I asked Burt Seldon, who gives me my intelligence tests and works with Algernon, he said that some  
people would say both of them were wrong and according  
to the things he's been reading up on, the I.Q. measures a  
lot of different things including some of the things you  
learned already and it really isn't a good measure of intelligence at all.  
So I still don't know what I.Q. is, and everybody says  
it's something different. Mine is about a hundred now, and  
it's going to be over a hundred and fifty soon, but they'll  
still have to fill me up with the stuff. I didn't want to say  
anything, but I don't see how if they don't know what it is,  
or where it is-how they know how much of it you've got.  
Prof Nemur says I have to take a Rorschach Test the  
day after tomorrow. I wonder what that is.  
Aprill7--I had a nightmare last night, and this morning,  
after I woke up, I free-associated the way Dr. Strauss told  
me to do when I remember my dreams. Think about the   
dream and just let my mind wander until other thoughts  
come up in my mind. I keep on doing that until my mind  
goes blank. Dr. Strauss says that it means fve reached a  
point where my subconscious is trying to block my con·  
scious from remembering. It's a wall between the present  
and the past. Sometimes the wall stays up and sometimes  
it breaks down and I can remember what's behind it.  
Like this morning.  
The dream was about Miss Kinnian reading my  
progress reports. In the dream I sit down to write but I  
can't write or read any more. It's all gone. I get frightened  
so I ask Gimpy at the bakery to write for me. But when  
Miss Kinnian reads the report she gets angry and teats the  
pages up because therve got dirty words in them.  
When I get home Prof. Nemur and Dr. Strauss are  
waiting for me and they give me a beating for writing dirty  
things in the progress report. When they leave me I pick  
up the tom pages but they tum into lace valentines with  
blood all over them.  
It was a horrible dream but I got out of bed and wrote  
it all down and then I started to free associate.  
Bakery ••• baking ••• the um ••. someone kicking me •.•  
&11 down ••• bloody all over ... writing .•. big pencil on a red  
valentine ••• a little gold heart ..• a locket ... a chain ••• all  
oovered with blood ... and he's laughing at me .••  
The chain is from a locket ... spinning around .•.  
flashing the sunlight into my eyes. And I like to watch it  
spin •.. watch the chain ... all bunched up and twisting  
and spinning ••. and a little girl is watching me.   
Her name is Miss Kin-1 mean Harriet.  
*'Harriet ••• Harriet ••• we all love Harriet. •  
And then there's nothing. It's blank again.  
Miss Kinnian reading my progress reports over my  
shoulder.  
Then we're at the Adult Center for the Retarded, and  
she's reading over my shoulder as I write my eempesisftu:at  
compositions.  
School changes into P.S. 13 and I'm deven years old  
and Miss Kinnian is eleven years old too, but now she's  
not Miss Kinnian. She's a little girl with dimples and long  
curls and her name is Harriet. We all love Harriet. It's  
Valentines Day.  
I remember •••  
I remember what happened at P.S. 13 and why they  
had to change my school and send me to P.S. 222. It was  
because of Harriet.  
I see Charlie-deven years old. He has a little goldmlor locket he once found in the street. There's no chain,  
but he has it on a string, and he likes to twirl the locket so  
that it bunches up the string, and then watch it unwind,  
spinning around with the sun Bicking into his eyes.  
Sometimes when the kids play catch they let him play  
in the middle and he tries to get the ball before one of  
them catches it. He likes to be in the middle-even if he  
never catches the ball-and once when Hymie Roth  
dropped the ball by mistake and he picked it up they  
wouldn't let him throw it but he had to go in the middle  
again.   
When Harriet passes by, the boys stop playing and  
look at her. All the boys love Harriet. When she shakes her  
head her rurls bounce up and down, and she has dimples.  
Charlie doesn't know why they make such a fuss about a  
girl and why they always want to talk to her (he'd rather  
play ball or kick-the-can, or ringo-levio than talk to a girl)  
but all the boys are in love with Harriet so he is in love  
with her too.  
She never teases him like the other kids, and he does  
tricks for her. He walks on the desks when the teacher isn't  
there. He throws erasers out the window, scribbles all over  
the blackboard and walls. And Harriet always screeches  
and giggles, "Oh, lookit Charlie. Ain't he funny? Oh, ain't  
he silly?"  
It's Valentine's Day, and the boys are talking about  
valentines therre going to give Harriet, so Charlie says,  
"I'm gonna give Harriet a valentime too."  
They laugh and Barry says, "Where you gonna get a  
valentime?"  
"I'm gonna get her a pretty one. You'll see."  
But he doesn't have any money for a valentine, so he  
decides to give Harriet his locket that is heart-shaped like  
the valentines in the store windows. That night he takes  
tissue paper from his mother's drawer, and it takes a long  
time to wrap and tie it with a piece of red ribbon. Then  
he takes it to Hymie Roth the next day during lunch  
period in school and asks Hymie to write on the paper  
for him.   
He tells Hymie to write: "Dear Harriet, I think you are  
the most prettiest girl in the whole world I like you very much  
and I love you. I want you to be my valentime. Your .ftientL  
Charlie Gordon. •  
Hymie prints very carefully in large letters on the  
paper, laughing all the time, and he tells Charlie, "Boy, this  
will knock her eyes out. Wait'll she sees this."  
Charlie is scared, but he wants to give Harriet that  
locket, so he follows her home from school and waits until  
she goes into her house. Then he sneaks into the hall and  
hangs the package on the inside of the doorknob. He rings  
the bell twice and runs across the street to hide behind the  
tree.  
When Harriet comes down she looks around to see  
who rang the bell. Then she sees the package. She takes it  
and goes upstairs. Charlie goes home from school and he  
gets a spanking because he took the tissue paper and ribbon out of his mother's drawer without telling her. But he  
doesn't care. Tomorrow Harriet will wear the locket and  
tell all the boys he gave it to her. Then they'll see.  
The next day he runs all the way to school, but it's too  
early. Harriet isn't there yet, and he's excited.  
But when Harriet comes in she doesn't even look at  
him. She isn't wearing the locket. And she looks sore.  
He does all kinds of things when Mrs. Janson isn't  
watching: He makes funny faces. He laughs out loud. He  
stands up on his seat and wiggles his fanny. He even  
throws a piece of chalk at Harold. But Harriet doesn't look  
S3   
at him even once. Maybe she forgot. Maybe she'll wear it  
tomorrow. She passes by in the hallway, but when he  
comes over to ask her she pushes past him without saying  
a word.  
Down in the schoolyard her two big brothers are waiting for him.  
Gus pushes him. "You little bastard, did you write this  
dirty note to my sister?"  
Charlie says he didn't write any dirty notes. "I just  
gave her a valentime."  
Oscar. who was on the football team before he graduated from high school grabs Charlie's shirt and tears ofF  
two buttons. "You keep away from my kid sister, you degenerate. You don't belong in this school anyway.•  
He pushes Charlie over to Gus who catches him by  
the throat. Charlie is scared and starts to ay.  
Then they start to hurt him. Oscar punches him in  
the nose, and Gus knocks him on the ground and kicks  
him in the side and then both of them kick him, one and  
then the other, and some of the other kids in the yardCharlie's friends-come running screaming and clapping  
hands: "Fight! Fight! Thqre beating up Charlie!"  
His clothes are tom and his nose is bleeding and one  
of his teeth is broken, and after Gus and Oscar go away he  
sits on the sidewalk and aies. The blood tastes sour. The  
other kids just laugh and shout: "Charlie got a licking!  
Charlie got a licking!• And then Mr. Wagner, one of the  
caretakers from the school, comes and chases them away.  
He takes Charlie into the boys' room and tells him to wash   
ofF the blood and din from his &ce and hands before he  
goes back home. •••  
I guess I was pretty dumb because I believed what  
people told me. I shouldn't have trusted Hymie or anyone.  
I never remembered any of this before today, but it  
came back to me after I thought about the dream. It has  
something to do with the feeling about Miss Kinnian reading my progress reports. Anyway, I'm glad now I don't have  
to ask anyone to write things for me. Now I can do it for  
mysel£  
But I just realized something. Harriet never gave me  
back my locket.  
AprillB-1 found out what a Rorschach is. It's the test  
with the inkblots, the one I took before the operation. As  
soon as I saw what it was, I got frightened. I knew Burt  
was going to ask me to find the pictures, and I knew I  
wouldn't be able to. I was thinking, if only there was some  
way of knowing what kind of pictures were hidden there.  
Maybe there weren't any pictures at all. Maybe it was just a  
trick to see if I was dumb enough to look for something  
that wasn't there. Just thinking about it made me sore  
at him.  
"All right, Charlie," he said, "you've seen these cards  
before, remember?"  
"Of course, I remember."  
The way I said it, he knew I was angry, and he looked  
up at me surprised.  
ss   
"Anything wrong, Charlie?"  
"No, nothing's wrong. Those inkblots upset me."  
He smiled and shook his head. "Nothing to be upset  
about. This is just one of the standard personality tests.  
Now I want you to look at this card. What might this be?  
What do you see on this card? People see all sorts of things  
in these inkblots. Tell me what it might be for you-what  
it makes you think o£"  
I was shocked. I stared at the card and then at him.  
That wasn't what I had expected him to say at all. "You  
mean there are no pictures hidden in those inkblots?"  
Burt &owned and took ofF his glasses. "What?"  
"Pictures! Hidden in the inkblots! Last time you told  
me that everyone could see them and you wanted me to  
find them too."  
"No, Charlie. I couldn't have said that."  
"What do you mean?" I shouted at him. Being so  
afraid of the inkblots had made me angry at myself and at  
Burt too. "That's what you said to me. Just because you're  
smart enough to go to college doesn't mean you have to  
make fun of me. I'm sick and tired of everybody laughing  
at me."  
I don't recall ever being so angry before. I don't think  
it was at Burt himself, but suddenly everything exploded. I  
tossed the Rorschach cards on the table and walked out.  
Professor Nemur was passing by in the hall, and when I  
rushed past him without saying hello he knew something  
was wrong. He and Burt caught up with me as I was about  
to go down in the devator.  
s6   
"Charlie," said Nemur, grabbing my arm. "Wait a  
minute. What is this all about?"  
I shook free and nodded at Burt. "I'm sick and tired of  
people making fun of me. That's all. Maybe before I didn't  
know any better, but now I do, and I don't like it."  
"Nobody's making fun of you here, Charlie," said  
Nemur.  
"What about the inkblots? Last time Burt told me  
there were pictures in the ink-that everyone could see,  
and I-"  
"Look, Charlie, would you like to hear the exact  
words Burt said to you, and your answers as well? We have  
a tape-recording of that testing session. We can replay it  
and let you hear cxacdy what was said."  
I went back with them to the psych office with mixed  
feelings. I was sure they had made fun of me and nicked  
me when I was too ignorant to know better. My anger was  
an exciting feeling, and I didn't give it up easily. I was ready  
to fight.  
As Nemur went to the files to get the tape, Burt explained: "Last time, I used almost the exact words I used  
today. It's a requirement of these tests that the procedure  
be the same each time it's administered."  
"I'll believe that when I hear it."  
A look passed between them. I felt the blood rush to  
my &ce again. They were laughing at me. But then I realized what I had just said, and hearing myself I understood  
the reason for the look. They weren't laughing. They knew  
what was happening to me. I had reached a new level, and   
anger and suspicion were my first reactions to the world  
around me.  
Burt's voice boomed over the tape recorder:  
"Now I want you to look at this card, Charlie. What  
might this be? What do you see on this card? People see all  
kinds of things in these inkblots. Tell me what it makes  
you think of .•• •  
The same words, almost the same tone of voice he had  
used minutes ago in the lab. And then I heard my answers-childish, impossible things. And I dropped limply  
into the chair beside Professor Nemur's desk. "Was that  
really me?"  
I went back to the lab with Burt, and we went on with  
the Rorschach. We went through the cards slowly. This  
time my responses were different. I "savl' things in the  
inkblots. A pair of bats tugging at each other. Two men  
fencing with swords. I imagined all sorts of things. But  
even so, I found myself not trusting Burt completely any  
more. I kept turning the cards around, checking the backs  
to see if there was anything there I was supposed to catch.  
I peeked, while he was making his notes. But it was all  
in code that looked like this:  
WF +A DdF-.Ad orig. WF -A SF+ obj  
The test still doesn't make sense. It seems to me that  
anyone could make up lies about things he didn't really   
see. How could they know I wasn't making fools of them  
by saying things I didn't really imagine?  
Maybe I'll understand it when Dr. Strauss lets me read  
up on psychology. It's getting harder for me to write down  
all my thoughts and feelings because I know that people  
are reading them. Maybe it would be better if I could keep  
some of these reports private for a while. I'm going to ask  
Dr. Strauss. Why should it suddenly start to bother me?  
PROGRESS REPORT 10  
Apri/21-1 figured out a new way to set up the mixing  
machines in the bakery to speed up production. Mr. Donner says he will save labor costs and increase profits. He  
gave me a fifty-dollar bonus and a ten-dollar-a-week raise.  
I wanted to take Joe Carp and Frank Reilly out to  
lunch to celebrate, but Joe had to buy some things for his  
wife, and Frank was meeting his cousin for lunch. I guess  
it will take time for them to get used to the changes in me.  
Everyone seems frightened of me. When I went over to  
Gimpy and tapped him on the shoulder to ask him something, he jumped up and dropped his cup of coffee all over  
himsel£ He stares at me when he thinks I'm not looking.  
Nobody at the place talks to me any more, or kids around  
the way they used to. It makes the job kind of lonely.  
Thinking about it makes me remember the time I fell  
asleep standing up and Frank kicked my legs out from  
under me. The warm sweet smell, the white walls, the roar  
of the oven when Frank opens the door to shift the loaves.  
S9   
Suddenly falling ••• twisting .•• everything out from  
under me and my head cracking against the wall.  
It's me, and yet it's like someone else lying thereanother Charlie. He's confused ••• rubbing his head •••  
staring up at Frank, tall and thin, and then at Gimpy  
nearby, massive, hairy, gray-&ced Gimpy with bushy eyebrows that almost hide his blue eyes.  
"Leave the kid alone," says Gimp. "Jesus, Frank, why  
do you always gotta pick on him?"  
"It don't mean nothing," laughs Frank. "It don't hurt  
him. He don't know any better. Do you, Charlie?"  
Charlie rubs his head and ainges. He doesn't know  
what he's done to deserve this punishment, but there is always the chance that there will be more.  
"But you know better," says Gimpy, clumping over on  
his orthopedic boot, "so what the hell you always picking  
on him for?" The two men sit down at the long table, the  
tall Frank and the heavy Gimp shaping the dough for the  
rolls that have to be baked for the evening orders.  
They work in silence for a while, and then Frank stops  
and tips his white cap back. "Hey, Gimp, think Charlie  
could learn to bake rolls?"  
Gimp leans an elbow on the worktable. "Why don't  
we just leave him alone?"  
"No, I mean it, Gimp-seriously. I bet he could learn  
something simple like making rolls."  
The idea seems to appeal to Gimpy who turns to stare  
6o   
at Charlie. "Maybe you got something there. Hey, Charlie,  
come here a minute."  
As he usually does when people are talking about him,  
Charlie has been keeping his head down, staring at his  
shoelaces. He knows how to lace and tie them. He could  
make rolls. He could learn to pound, roll, twist and shape  
the dough into the small round forms.  
Frank looks at him uncertainly. "Maybe we shouldn't,  
Gimp. Maybe it's wrong. If a moron can't learn maybe we  
shouldn't start anything with him."  
"You leave this to me," says Gimpy who has now  
taken over Frank's idea. "I think maybe he can learn. Now  
listen, Charlie. You want to learn something? You want me  
to teach you how to make rolls like me and Frank are  
doing?  
Charlie stares at him, the smile melting &om his face.  
He understands what Gimpy wants, and he feels cornered.  
He wants to please Gimpy, but there is something about  
the words learn and teach, something to remember about  
being punished severely, but he doesn't recall what it isonly a thin white hand upraised, hitting him to make him  
learn something he couldn't understand.  
Charlie backs away but Gimpy grabs his arm. "'Hey,  
kid, take it easy. We ain't gonna hurt you. Look at him  
shaking like he's gonna fall apart. Look, Charlie. I got a  
nice new shiny good-luck piece for you to play with." He  
holds out his hand and reveals a brass chain with a shiny  
brass disc that says STA-BRITB METAL PouSH. He holds the  
61   
chain by one end and the gleaming gold disc rotates slowly,  
catching the light of the fluorescent bulbs. The pendant is  
a brighmess that Charlie remembers but he doesnt know  
why or what.  
He doesnt reach for it. He knows you get punished if  
you reach out for other people's things. If someone puts it  
into your hand that is all right. But otherwise ir»s wrong.  
When he sees that Gimpy is offering it to him, he nods  
and smiles again.  
"That he knows,, laughs Frank. "Give him something  
bright and shiny., Frank, who has let Gimpy take over the  
experiment, leans forward excitedly. "Maybe if he wants  
that piece of junk bad enough and you tell him he'll get  
it if he learns to shape the dough into rolls-maybe it'll  
work."  
As the bakers set to the task of teaching Charlie, others  
from the shop gather around. Frank clears an area between  
them on the table, and Gimpy pulls off a medium sized  
piece of dough for Charlie to work with. There is talk of  
betting on whether or not Charlie can learn to make rolls.  
"Watch us carefully,, says Gimpy, putting the pendant  
beside him on the table where Charlie can see it. "Watch  
and do everything we do. If you learn how to make rolls,  
you'll get this shiny good-luck piece.,  
Charlie hunches over on his stool, intently watching  
Gimpy pick up the knife and cut off a slab of dough. He  
studies each movement as Gimpy rolls out the dough into  
a long roll, breaks it off and twists it into a circle, pausing  
now and then to sprinkle it with flour.   
"Now watch me," says Frank, and he repeats GimPis  
performance. Charlie is confused. There are differences.  
Gimpy holds his elbows out as he rolls the dough, like a  
bird's wings, but Frank keeps his arms dose to his sides.  
Gimpy keeps his thumbs together with the rest of his fingers as he kneads the dough, but Frank works with the Bat  
of his palms, keeping thumbs apart from his other fingers  
and up in the air.  
Worrying about these things makes it impossible for  
Charlie to move when Gimpy says, "Go ahead, try it."  
Charlie shakes his head.  
"look, Charlie, I'm gonna do it again slow. Now you  
watch everything I do, and do each part along with me.  
Okay? But try to remember everything so then you'll be able  
to do the whole thing alone. Now come on-like this."  
Charlie frowns as he watches Gimpy pull off a section  
of dough and roll it into a ball. He hesitates, but then he  
picks up the ~ and slices off a piece of dough and sets  
it down in the center of the table. Slowly, keeping his elbows out exactly as Gimpy does, he rolls it into a ball.  
He looks from his own hands to Gimpy's, and he is  
c:areful to keep his fingers exactly the same way, thumbs together with the rest of his fingers-slightly cupped. He  
has to do it right, the way Gimpy wants him to do it.  
There are echoes inside him that say, do it right and they  
will like you. And he wants Gimpy and Frank to like him.  
When Gimpy has finished working his dough into a  
ball, he stands back, and so does Charlie. "Hey, that's  
great. look, Frank, he made it into a ball."   
Frank nods and smiles. Charlie sighs and his whole  
frame trembles as the tension builds. He is unaccustomed  
to this rare moment of success.  
"All right now," says Gimpy. "Now we make a roll."  
Awkwardly, but carefully, Charlie follows Gimpy's every  
move. Occasionally, a twitch of his hand or arm mars what  
he is doing, but in a little while he is able to twist off a section of the dough and fashion it into a roll. Working beside Gimpy he makes six rolls, and sprinkling them with  
flour he sets them carefully alongside Gimpy's in the large  
flour-covered tray.  
"All right, Charlie." Gimpys &ce is serious. "Now, let's  
see you do it by yoursel£ Remember all the things you did  
from the beginning. Now, go ahead."  
Charlie stares at the huge slab of dough and at the  
knife that Gimpy has pushed into his hand. And once  
again panic comes over him. What did he do first? How  
did he hold his hand? His fingers? Which way did he roll  
the ball? ••• A thousand confusing ideas burst into his  
mind at the same time and he stands there smiling. He  
wants to do it, to make Frank and Gimpy happy and have  
them like him, and to get the bright good-luck piece that  
Gimpy has promised him. He turns the smooth, heavy  
piece of dough around and around on the table, but he  
cannot bring himself to start. He cannot cut into it because he knows he will &il and he is afraid.  
"He forgot already," said Frank. "It don't stick."  
He wants it to stick. He frowns and tries to remember:  
first you start to cut off a piece. Then you roll it out into a   
ball. But how does it get to be a roll like the ones in the aay?  
That's something else. Give him time and he'll remember.  
As soon as the fuzziness passes away he'll remember. Just another few seconds and he'll have it. He wants to hold on to  
what he's learned-for a little while. He wants it so much.  
"Okay, Charlie," sighs Gimpy, taking the cutter out of  
his hand. "That's all right. Don't worry about it. It's not  
your work anyway."  
Another minute and he'll remember. If only they  
wouldn't rush him. Why does everything have to be in  
such a hurry?  
"Go ahead, Charlie. Go sit down and look at your  
comic book. We got to get back to work."  
Charlie nods and smiles, and pulls the comic book out  
of his back pocket. He smooths it out, and puts it on his  
head as a make-believe hat. Frank laughs and Gimpy finally smiles.  
"Go on, you big baby," snorts Gimpy. "Go sit down  
there until Mr. Donner wants you."  
Charlie smiles at him and goes back to the flour sacks  
in the comer near the mixing machines. He likes to lean  
back against them while he sits on the floor cross-legged  
and looks at the piaures in his comic book. As he starts to  
tum the pages, he feels like crying, but he doesn't know  
why. What is there to feel sad about? The fuzzy cloud  
comes and goes, and now he looks forward to the pleasure  
of the brightly colored piaures in the comic book that he  
has gone through thirty, forry times. He knows all of the  
figures in the comic-he has asked their names over and   
over again (of almost everyone he meets)-and he understands that the sttange forms of letters and words in the  
white balloons above the figures means that they are saying  
something. Would he ever learn to read what was in the  
balloons? If they gave him enough time-if they didn't  
rush him or push him too fast-he would get it. But nobody has time.  
Charlie pulls his legs up and opens the comic book to  
the first page where the Batman and Robin are swinging  
up a long rope to the side of a building. Someday, he decides, he is going to read. And then he will be able to read  
the story. He feels a hand on his shoulder and he looks up.  
It is Gimpy holding out the brass disc and chain, letting it  
swing and twirl around so that it catches the light.  
"Here," he says grufBy, tossing it into Charlie's lap,  
and then he limps away .•••  
I never thought about it before, but that was a nice  
thing for him to do. Why did he? Anyway, that is my  
memory of the time, clearer and more complete than anything I have ever experienced before. Like looking out of  
the kitchen window early when the morning light is still  
gray. I've come a long way since then, and I owe it all to  
Dr. Strauss and Professor Nemur, and the other people  
here at Beekman. But what must Frank and Gimpy think  
and feel now, seeing how I've changed?  
Apri/22-People at the bakery are 'Changing. Not only ignoring me. I can feel the hostility. Donner is arranging for  
66   
me to join the baker's union, and I've gotten another raise.  
The rotten thing is that all of the pleasure is gone because  
the others resent me. In a way, I can't blame them. They  
don't understand what has happened to me, and I can't tell  
them. People are not proud of me the way I expectednot at all.  
Still, I've got to have someone to talk to. I'm going to  
ask Miss Kinnian to go to a movie tomorrow night to celebrate my raise. If I can get up the nerve.  
April 24--Professor Nemur finally agreed with Dr.  
Strauss and me that it will be impossible for me to write  
down everything if I know it's immediately read by people  
at the lab. I've tried to be completely honest about everything, no matter who I was talking about, but there are  
things I can't put down unless I can keep them privateat least for a while.  
Now, I'm allowed to keep back some of these more  
personal reports, but before the final report to the Welberg  
Foundation, Professor Nemur will read through everything to decide what part of it should be published.  
What happened today at the lab was very upsetting.  
I dropped by the office earlier this evening to ask Dr.  
Strauss or Professor Nemur if they thought it would be all  
right for me to ask Alice Kinnian out to a movie, but before I could knock I heard them arguing with each other. I  
shouldn't have stayed, but it's hard to break the habit of listening because people have always spoken and acted as if I  
weren't there, as if they never cared what I overheard.   
I heard someone bang on the desk, and then Professor  
Nemur shouted: "I've already informed the convention  
committee that we will present the paper at Chicago.,  
Then I heard Dr. StraUSS' voice: "But you're wrong,  
Harold. Six weeks from now is still too soon. He's still  
changing.,  
And then Nemur: "We've predicted the pattern correctly so far. Were justified in making an interim report. I  
tell you, Jay, there's nothing to be a&aid o£ We've succeeded. It's all positive. Nothing can go wrong now.,  
Strauss: "This is too important to all of us to bring it  
out into the open prematurely. You're taking the authority  
on yourself.-"  
Nemur: "You forget that I'm the senior member of  
this project.,  
Strauss: "And you forget that you're not the only one  
with a reputation to consider. If we claim too much now,  
our whole hypothesis will come under fire.,  
Nemur: "I'm not a&aid of regression any more. I've  
checked and rechecked everything. An interim report will  
do no harm. I feel sure nothing can go wrong now.,  
The argument went on that way with Strauss saying  
that Nemur had his eye on the Chair of Psychology at  
Hallston, and Nemur saying that Strauss was riding on the  
coattails of his psychological research. Then Strauss said  
that the project had as much to do with his techniques  
in psychosurgery and enzyme-injection patterns, as with  
Nemur's theories, and that someday thousands of neurosurgeons all over the world would be using his methods,  
68   
but at this point Nemur reminded him that those new  
techniques would never have come about if not for his  
original theory.  
They called each other names-opportunist. cynic, pessimist-and I found myself frightened. Suddenly, I realized I no longer had the right to stand there outside the  
office and listen to them without their knowing it. They  
might not have cared when I was too feeble-minded to  
know what was going on, but now that I could understand  
they wouldn't want me to hear it. I left without waiting for  
the outcome.  
It was dark, and I walked for a long time trying to figure out why I was so frightened. I was seeing them clearly  
for the first time-not gods or even heroes, but just two  
men worried about getting something out of their work.  
Yet, ifNemur is right and the experiment is a success, what  
does it matter? There's so much to do, so many plans to  
make.  
I'll wait until tomorrow to ask them about taking  
Miss Kinnian to a movie to celebrate my raise.  
April 26-l know I shouldn't hang around the college  
when I'm through at the lab, but seeing the young men  
and women going back and forth carrying books and hearing them talk about all the things theyre learning in their  
classes excites me. I wish I could sit and talk with them  
over coffee in the Campus Bowl Luncheonette when they  
get together to argue about books and politics and ideas.  
It's exciting to hear them talking about poetry and science   
and philosophy-about Shakespeare and Milton; Newton and Einstein and Freud; about Plato and Hegel and  
Kant, and all the other names that echo like great church  
bells in my mind.  
Sometimes I listen in on the conversations at the  
tables around me, and pretend I'm a college student, even  
though I'm a lot older than they are. I carry books around,  
and I've started to smoke a pipe. It's silly, but since I belong  
at the lab I feel as if I'm a part of the university. I hate to  
go home to that londy room.  
April27--l've made mends with some of the boys at the  
Campus Bowl. They were arguing about whether or not  
Shakespeare really wrote Shakespeare's plays. One of the  
boys-the fat one with the sweaty face-said that Marlowe wrote all of Shakespeare's plays. But Lenny, the short  
kid with the dark glasses, didn't believe that business about  
Marlowe, and he said that everyone knew that Sir Francis  
Bacon wrote the plays because Shakespeare had never been  
to college and never had the education that shows up in  
those plays. That's when the one with the freshman beanie  
said he had heard a couple of guys in the men's room talking about how Shakespeare's plays were really written by  
a lady.  
And they talked about politics and art and God. I  
never before heard anyone say that there might not be a  
God. That frightened me, because for the first time I  
began to think about what God means.   
Now I understand one of the important reasons for  
going to college and getting an education is to learn that  
the things youve believed in all your life arent true, and  
that nothing is what it appears to be.  
All the time they talked and argued, I felt the excitement bubble up inside me. This was what I wanted to  
do-go to college and hear people talk about important  
things.  
I spend most of my free time at the library now, reading and soaking up what I can from books. I'm not concentrating on anything in particular, just reading a lot of  
fiction now-Dostoevski, Flaubert, Dickens, Hemingway,  
Faulkner-everything I can get my hands on-feeding a  
hunger that can't be satisfied.  
~ 28-ln a dream last night I heard Mom screaming  
at Dad and the teacher at the elementary school P.S. 13  
(my first school before they transferred me to P.S. 222) .•••  
"He's normal! He's normal! He'll grow up like other  
people. Better than others." She was trying to scratch the  
teacher, but Dad was holding her back. "He'll go to college  
someday. He'll be somebody." She kept screaming it, clawing at Dad so he'd let go of her. "He'll go to college someday and he'll be somebody."  
We were in the principal's office and there were a lot  
of people looking embarrassed, but the assistant principal  
was smiling and turning his head so no one would see it.   
The principal in my dream had a long beard, and was  
floating around the room and pointing at me. "He'll have  
to go to a special school. Put him into the Warren State  
Home and Training School. We can't have him here."  
Dad was pulling Mom out of the principal's office,  
and she was shouting and crying too. I didn't see her &ce,  
but her big red teardrops kept splashing down on me .•.•  
This morning I could recall the dream, but now  
there's more than that-I can remember through the blur,  
back to when I was six years old and it all happened. Just  
before Norma was hom. I see Mom, a thin, dark-haired  
woman who talks too f.lst and uses her hands too much. As  
always her face is blurred. Her hair is up in a bun, and her  
hand goes to touch it, pat it smooth, as if she has to make  
sure it's still there. I remember that she was always fluttering like a big, white bird-around my father, and he too  
heavy and tired to escape her pecking.  
I see Charlie, standing in the center of the kitchen,  
playing with his spinner, bright colored beads and rings  
threaded on a string. He holds the string up in one hand  
turns the rings so they wind and unwind in bright spinning flashes. He spends long hours watching his spinner. I  
don't know who made it for him, or what became of it, but  
I see him standing there fascinated as the suing untwists  
and sets the rings spinning ..••  
She is saeaming at him-no, she's screaming at his  
father. "I'm not going to take him. There's nothing wrong  
with him!"   
"Rose, it won't do any good pretending any longer  
that nothing is wrong. Just look at him, Rose. Six years  
old, and-"  
"He's not a dummy. He's normal. He'll be just like  
everyone else."  
He looks sadly at his son with the spinner and Charlie  
smiles and holds it up to show him how pretty it is when  
it goes around and around.  
"Put that thing away!" Mom shrieks and suddenly she  
knocks the spinner from Charlie's hand, and it crashes aaoss  
the kitchen floor. "Go play with your alphabet blocks."  
He stands there, frightened by the sudden outburst.  
He cowers, not knowing what she will do. His body begins  
to shake. Therre arguing, and the voices back and forth  
make a squeezing pressure inside him and a sense of panic.  
"Charlie, go to the bathroom. Don't you dare do it in  
your pants."  
He wants to obey her, but his legs are too soft to  
move. His arms go up automatically to ward off blows.  
"For God's sake, Rose. Leave him alone. You've got  
him terrified. You always do this, and the poor kid-"  
"Then why don't you hdp me? I have to do it all by  
myself. Every day I try to teach him-to hdp him catch  
up to the others. He's just slow, that's all. But he can learn  
like everyone dse."  
"You're fooling yourself, Rose. It's not fair to us or to  
him. Pretending he's normal. Driving him as if he were an  
animal that could learn to do tricks. Why don't you leave  
him alone?"  
73   
"Because I want him to be like everyone else. •  
As they argue, the feeling that grips Charlie's insides  
becomes greater. His bowels feel as if they will burst and he  
knows he should go to the bathroom as she has told him  
so often. But he can't walk. He feels like sitting down right  
there in the kitchen, but it is wrong and she will slap him.  
He wants his spinner. If he has his spinner and he  
watches it going round and round, he will be able to control himself and not make in his pants. But the spinner is  
all apart with some of the rings under the table and some  
under the sink, and the cord is near the stove.  
It is very strange that although I can recall the voices  
dearly their faces are still blurred, and I can see only general outlines. Dad massive and slumped. Mom thin and  
quick. Hearing them now, arguing with each other across  
the years, I have the impulse to shout at them: "Look at  
him. There, down there! Look at Charlie. He has to go to  
the toilet!"  
Charlie stands clutching and pulling at his red checkered shirt as they argue over him. The words are angry  
sparks between them-an anger and a guilt he can't  
identify.  
"Next September he's going to go back to P.S. 13 and  
do the term's work over again."  
"Why can't you let yourself see the truth? The teacher  
says he's not capable of doing the work in a regular class. •  
"That bitch a teacher? Oh, I've got better names for  
her. Let her start with me again and I'll do more than just  
write to the board of education. I'll scratch that dirty slut's  
74   
eyes out. Charlie, why are you twisting like that? Go to the  
bathroom. Go by yoursel£ You know how to go."  
"Can't you see he wants you to take him? He's  
frightened."  
"Keep out of this. He's perfectly capable of going to  
the bathroom himsel£ The book says it gives him confidence and a feeling of achievement."  
The terror that waits in that cold tile room overwhelms him. He is afraid to go there alone. He reaches up  
for her hand and sobs out: "Toi-toi .. ." and she slaps his  
hand away.  
"No more," she says sternly. "You're a big boy now.  
You can go by yoursel£ Now march right into that bathroom and pull your pants down the way I taught you. I  
warn you if you make in your pants you'll get spanked."  
I can almost feel it now, the stretching and knotting in  
his intestines as the two of them stand over him waiting to  
see what he will do. His whimper becomes a soft crying as  
suddenly he can control no longer, and he sobs and covers  
his face with his hands as he dirties himsel£  
It is soft and warm and he feels the confusion of relief  
and fear. It is his, but she will take it away from him as she  
always does. She will take it away and keep it for herself.  
And she will spank him. She comes toward him, screaming  
that he is a bad boy, and Charlie runs to his father for hdp.  
Suddenly, I remember that her name is Rose and his  
name is Matt. It's odd to have forgotten your parents'  
names. And what about Norma? Strange I haven't thought  
7S   
about them all for a long time. I wish I could see Matt's  
&ce now, to know what he was thinking at that moment.  
All I remember is that as she began to spank me, Matt  
Gordon turned and walked out of the apartment.  
I wish I could see their faces more clearly.  
PROGRESS REPORT 11  
Ma, 1-Why haven't I ever noticed how beautiful Alice  
Kinnian is? She has pigeon-soft brown eyes and feathery  
brown hair down to the hollow of her neck. When she  
smiles, her fUll lips look as if she's pouting.  
We went to a movie and then to dinner. I didn't see  
much of the first piaure because I was too conscious of her  
sitting next to me. Twice her bare arm touched mine on  
the armrest, and both times the fear that she would become annoyed made me pull back. All I could think about  
was her soft skin just inches away. Then I saw, two rows  
ahead of us, a young man with his arm around his girl, and  
I wanted to put my arm around Miss Kinnian. Terrifying.  
But if I did it slowly •.• first resting my arm on the back of  
her seat ••• moving up ... inch by inch ••• to rest near her  
shoulders and the back of her neck .•. casually ..•  
I didn't dare.  
The best I could do was rest my dhow on the back of  
her seat, but by the time I got there I had to shift position  
to wipe the perspiration off my &ce and neck.  
Once, her leg accidentally brushed against mine.  
It became such an ordeal-so painful-that I forced   
myself to take my mind off her. The first pictUre had been  
a war film, and all I caught was the ending where the G.I.  
goes back to Europe to marry the woman who saved his  
life. The second pictUre interested me. A psychological film  
about a man and woman apparendy in love but actually destroying each other. Everything suggests that the man is  
going to kill his wife but at the last moment, something she  
saeams out in a nightmare makes him recall something  
that happened to him during his childhood. The sudden  
memory shows him that his hatred is really directed at a depraved governess who had terrified him with frightening  
stories and left a flaw in his personality. Excited at discovering this, he aies out with joy so that his wife awakens. He  
takes her in his arms and the implication is that all his  
problems have been solved. It was pat and cheap, and I  
must have shown my anger because Alice wanted to know  
what was wrong. "It's a lie," I explained, as we walked out  
into the lobby. "Things just don't happen that way."  
"Of course not." She laughed. "It's a world of makebell eve. "  
"Oh, no! That's no answer." I insisted. "Even in the  
world of make-believe there have to be rules. The parts  
have to be consistent and belong together. This kind of  
pictUre is a lie. Things are forced to fit because the writer  
or the director or somebody wanted something in that  
didn't belong. And it doesn't feel right."  
She looked at me thoughtfully as we walked out into  
the bright dazzling night-lights of Times Square. "You're  
coming along fast."  
71   
"fm confused. I don't know what I know any more. •  
"Never mind that, • she insisted. "You're beginning to  
see and understand things." She waved her hand to take in  
all of the neon and glitter around us as we crossed over to  
Seventh Avenue. "You're beginning to see what's behind  
the surf.tce of things. What you say about the parts having  
to belong together-that was a pretty good insight."  
"Oh, come on now. I don't feel as if fm accomplishing anything. I don't understand about myself or my past.  
I don't even know where my parents are, or what they look  
like. Do you know that when I see them in a Bash of memory or in a dream the faces are a blur? I want to see their  
expressions. I can't understand what's going on unless I can  
see their faces-"  
"Charlie, calm down. • People were turning to stare.  
She slipped her arm through mine and pulled me close to  
restrain me. "Be patient. Don't forget you're accomplishing  
in weeks what takes others a lifetime. You're a giant sponge  
soaking in knowledge. Soon you'll begin to connect things  
up, and you'll see how all the different worlds of learning  
are related. All the levels, Charlie, like steps on a giant ladder. And you'll climb higher and higher to see more and  
more of the world around you."  
As we entered the cafeteria on Forty-fifth Street and  
picked up our trays, she spoke animatedly. "Ordinary  
people, • she said, "can see only a little bit. They can't change  
much or go any higher than they are, but you're a genius.  
You'll keep going up and up, and see more and more. And  
each step will reveal worlds you never even knew existed."   
People on the line who heard her turned to stare at  
me, and only when I nudged her to stop did she lower her  
voice. "I just hope to God,, she whispered, "that you don't  
get hurt.,  
For a little while after that I didn't know what to say.  
We ordered our food at the counter and carried it to our  
table and ate without talking. The silence made me nervous.  
I knew what she meant about her fear, so I joked about it.  
"Why should I get hurt? I couldn't be any worse off  
than I was before. Even Algernon is still smart, isn't he? As  
long as he's up there I'm in good shape., She toyed with  
her knife making circular depressions in a pat ofbutter and  
the movement hypnotized me. "And besides,, I told her, "I  
overheard something-Professor Nemur and Dr. Saauss  
were arguing, and Nemur said he's positive that nothing  
can go wrong.,  
"I hope so,, she said. "You have no idea how afraid  
I've been that something might go wrong. I feel partly responsible., She saw me staring at the knife and she put it  
down carefully beside her plate.  
"I never would have done it but for you,, I said.  
She laughed and it made me tremble. That's when I  
saw that her eyes were soft brown. She looked down at the  
tablecloth quickly and blushed.  
"Thank you, Charlie,, she said, and took my hand.  
It was the first time anyone had ever done that, and it  
made me bolder. I leaned forward, holding on to her hand,  
and the words came out. "I like you very much., After I  
said it, I was afraid she'd laugh, but she nodded and smiled.  
79   
"I like you too, Charlie."  
"But it's more than liking. What I mean is .•• oh hell!  
I don't know what I mean." I knew I was blushing and I  
didn't know where to look or what to do with my hands. I  
dropped a fork, and when I tried to retrieve it, I knocked  
over a glass of water and it spilled on her dress. Suddenly,  
I had become clumsy and awkward again, and when I tried  
to apologize I found my tongue had become too large for  
my mouth.  
"That's all right, Charlie," she tried to reassure me.  
"It's only water. Don't let it upset you this way."  
In the taxi on the way home, we were silent for a long  
time, and then she put down her purse and straightened  
my tie and puffed up my breast pocket handkerchief "You  
were very upset tonight, Charlie."  
"I feel ridiculous."  
"I upset you by talking about it. I made you selfconscious."  
"It's not that. What bothers me is that I can't put into  
words the way I feel."  
"These feelings are new to you. Not everything has  
to ••• be put into words."  
I moved closer to her and tried to take her hand again,  
but she pulled away. "No, Charlie. I don't think this is good  
for you. rve upset you, and it might have a negative effect."  
When she put me off, I felt awkward and ridiculous at  
the same time. It made me angry with myself and I pulled  
back to my side of the seat and stared out the window. I  
hated her as I had never hated anyone before-with her  
So   
easy answers and maternal fussing. I wanted to slap her  
face, to make her crawl, and then to hold her in my arms  
and kiss her.  
"Charlie, I'm sorry if I've upset you."  
"Forget it."  
"But youve got to understand what's happening."  
"I understand," I said, "and I'd rather not talk about it."  
By the time the cab reached her aparanent on  
Seventy-seventh Street, I was thoroughly miserable.  
"Look," she said, "this is my fault. I shouldn't have  
gone out with you tonight."  
"Yes, I see that now."  
"What I mean is, we have no right to put this on a  
personal ••. emotional levd. You have so much to do. I  
have no right to come into your life at this time."  
"That's my worry, isn't it?"  
"Is it? This isn't your private affair any more, Charlie.  
Youve got obligations now-not only to Professor Nemur  
and Dr. Strauss, but to the millions who may follow in  
your footsteps."  
The more she talked that way, the worse I felt. She  
highlighted my awkwardness, my lack of knowledge about  
the right things to say and do. I was a blundering adolescent in her eyes, and she was trying to let me down easy.  
As we stood at the door to her apartment, she turned  
and smiled at me and for a moment I thought she was  
going to invite me in, but she just whispered: "Good  
night, Charlie. Thank you for a wonderful evening."  
I wanted to kiss her good night. I had worried about  
81   
it earlier. Didn't a woman expect you to kiss her? In the  
novels I'd read and the movies I'd seen, the man makes the  
advances. I had decided last night that I would kiss her.  
But I kept thinking: what if she turns me down?  
I moved closer and reached for her shoulders, but she  
was too quick for me. She stopped me and took my hand  
in hers. "We'd better just say good night this way, Charlie.  
We can't let this get personal. Not yet."  
And before I could protest, or ask what she meant by  
not yet, she started inside. "Good night, Charlie, and thank  
you again for a lovely ••• lovely time." And closed the door.  
I was furious at her, myself, and the world, but by the  
time I got home, I realized she was right. Now, I don't  
know whether she cares for me or if she was just being  
kind. What could she possibly see in me? What makes it so  
awkwaid is that I've never experienced anything like this  
before. How does a person go about learning how to act  
toward another person? How does a man learn how to behave toward a woman?  
The books don't help much.  
But next time, I'm going to kiss her good night.  
MII!,Y 3--0ne of the things that confuses me is never really  
knowing when something comes up from my past,  
whether it really happened that way, or if that was the way  
it seemed to be at the time, or if I'm inventing it. I'm like  
a man who's been half-asleep all his lifi:, ttying to find out  
what he was like before he woke up. Everything is strangely  
slow-motion and blurred.  
82\.   
I had a nightmare last night, and when I woke up I remembered something.  
First the nightmare: I'm running down a long corridor, half blinded by the swirls of dust. At times I  
run forward and then I B.oat around and run backwards,  
but I'm afraid because I'm hiding something in my  
pocket. I don't know what it is or where I got it, but I  
know they want to take it away from me and that frightens me.  
The wall breaks down and suddenly there is a redhaired girl with her arms outstretched to me-her &ce is a  
blank mask. She takes me into her arms, kisses and caresses  
me, and I want to hold her tighdy but I'm afraid. The  
more she touches me, the more frightened I become because I know I must never touch a girl. Then, as her body  
rubs up against mine, I feel a strange bubbling and throbbing inside me that makes me warm. But when I look up  
I see a bloody knife in her hands.  
I try to scream as I run, but no sound comes out  
of my throat, and my pockets are empty. I search in my  
pockets but I don't know what it is I've lost or why I was  
hiding it. I know only that it's gone, and there is blood on  
my hands too.  
When I woke up, I thought of Alice, and I had the  
same feeling of panic as in the dream. What am I afraid of?  
Something about the knife.  
I made myself a cup of coffee and smoked a cigarette.  
I'd never had a dream like it before, and I knew it was   
connected with my evening with Alice. I have begun to  
think of her in a different way.  
Free association is still diffirult, because it's hard not to  
control the direction of your thoughts .•. just to leave your  
mind open and let anything flow into it ... ideas bubbling  
to the surface like a bubble bath •.. a woman bathing .•. a  
girl .•• Norma taking a bath ••• I am watching through the  
keyhole ••• and when she gets out of the tub to dry herself  
I see that her body is different from mine. Something is  
missing.  
Running down the hallway •.• somebody chasing  
me ••• not a person .•. just a big Hashing kitchen knife ...  
and I'm scared and crying but no voice comes out because  
my neck is cut and I'm bleeding •••  
"Mama. Charlie is peeking at me through the keyhole ... "  
Why is she different? What happened to her? ..•  
blood •.• bleeding ..• a dark cubbyhole •••  
Three blind mice •.• three blind mice,  
See how they run! See how they run!  
They all run after the farmer's wife,  
She cut ofF their tails with a carving knife,  
Did you ever see such a sight in your life,  
As three ... blind ... mice?  
Charlie, alone in the kitchen early in the morning.  
Everyone else asleep, and he amuses himself playing with  
his spinner. One of the buttons pops ofF his shirt as he   
bends over, and it rolls across the intricate line-pattern of  
the kitchen linoleum. It rolls towards the bathroom and he  
follows, but then he loses it. Where is the button? He goes  
into the bathroom to find it. There is a closet in the bathroom where the clothes hamper is, and he likes to take out  
all the clothes and look at them. His father's things and his  
mother's ••• and Norma's dresses. He would like to tty  
them on and make believe he is Norma, but once when he  
did that his mother spanked him for it. There in the  
clothes hamper he finds Norma's underwear with dried  
blood. What had she done wrong? He was terrified. Whoever had done it might come looking for him. •.•  
Why does a memory like that from childhood remain  
with me so strongly, and why does it frighten me now? Is  
it because of my feelings for Alice?  
Thinking about it now, I can understand why I was  
taught to keep away from women. It was wrong for me to  
express my feelings to Alice. I have no right to think of a  
woman that way-not yet.  
But even as I write these words, something inside  
shouts that there is more. I'm a person. I was somebody  
before I went under the surgeon's knife. And I have to love  
someone.  
Mlly B-Even now that I have learned what has been  
going on behind Mr. Donner's back, I find it hard to  
believe. I first noticed something was wrong during the  
rush hour two days ago. Gimpy was behind the counter  
ss   
wrapping a birthday cake for one of our regular customers-a cake that sells for $3.95. But when Gimpy rang  
up the sale the register showed only $2.95. I started to tell  
him he had made a mistake, but in the mirror behind the  
counter I saw a wink and smile that passed from the customer to Gimpy and the answering smile on Gimpy's &c:e.  
And when the man took his change, I saw the flash of a  
large silver coin left behind in Gimpy's hand, before his  
fingers closed on it, and the quick movement with which  
he slipped the half-dollar into his pocket.  
"Charlie," said a woman behind me, "are there any  
more of those aeam-filled eclairs?"  
"I'll go back and find out."  
I was glad of the interruption because it gave me time  
to think about what I had seen. Certainly, Gimpy had not  
made a mistake. He had deliberately undercharged the  
aJStomer, and there had been an understanding between  
them.  
I leaned limply against the wall not knowing what to  
do. Gimpy had worked for Mr. Donner for over fifteen  
years. Donner-who always treated his workers like close  
friends, like relatives-had invited Gimpy's &mily to his  
house for dinner more than once. He often put Gimpy in  
charge of the shop when he had to go out, and I had heard  
stories of the times Donner gave Gimpy money to pay his  
wife's hospital bills.  
It was incredible that anyone would steal from such  
a man. There had to be some other explanation. Gimpy  
had really made a mistake in ringing up the sale, and the  
86   
half-dollar was a tip. Or perhaps Mr. Donner had made  
some special arrangement for this one customer who regularly bought cream cakes. Anything rather than believe  
that Gimpy was stealing. Gimpy had always been so nice  
tome.  
I no longer wanted to know. I kept my eyes averted  
from the register as I brought out the tray of klairs and  
sorted out the cookies, buns, and cakes.  
But when the little red-haired woman came in-the  
one who always pinched my cheek and joked about finding a girl friend for me-l recalled that she came in most  
often when Donner was out to lunch and Gimpy was behind the counter. Gimpy had often sent me out to deliver  
orders to her house.  
Involuntarily, my mind totaled her purchases to  
$4.53. But I turned away so that I would not see what  
Gimpy rang up on the cash register. I wanted to know the  
auth, and yet I was afraid of what I might learn.  
"Two forty-five, Mrs. Wheeler," he said.  
The ring of the sale. The counting of change. The  
slam of the d,rawer. "Thank you, Mrs. Wheeler." I turned  
just in time to see him putting his hand into his pocket,  
and I heard the faint clink of coins.  
How many times had he used me as a go-between to  
deliver packages to her, undercharging her so that later  
they could split the difference? Had he used me all these  
years to help him steal?  
I couldn't take my eyes off Gimpy as he clomped  
around behind the counter, perspiration streaming down   
from under his paper cap. He seemed animated and goodnatured, but looking up he caught my eye, frowned and  
turned away.  
I wanted to hit him. I wanted to go behind the  
counter and smash his W:e in. I don't remember ever hating anyone before-but this morning I hated Gimpy with  
all my heart.  
Pouring this all out on paper in the quiet of my room  
has not helped. Every time I think of Gimpy stealing from  
Mr. Donner I want to smash something. Fortunately, I  
don't think I'm capable of violence. I don't think I ever hit  
anyone in my life.  
But I still have to decide what to do. Tell Donner that  
his trusted employee has been stealing from him all these  
years? Gimpy would deny it, and I could never prove it  
was true. And what would it do to Mr. Donner? I don't  
know what to do.  
MJt:y .9-I can't sleep. This has gotten to me. I owe Mr.  
Donner too much to stand by and see him robbed this  
way. I'd be as guilty as Gimpy by my silence. And yet, is it  
my place to inform on him? The thing that bothers me  
most is that when he sent me on deliveries he used me to  
hdp him steal from Donner. Not knowing about it, I was  
outside it-not to blame. But now that I know, by my silence I am as guilty as he is.  
Yet, Gimpy is a co-worker. Three children. What will  
he do if Donner fires him? He might not be able to get another job-especially with his dub foot.  
88   
Is that my worry?  
What's right? Ironic that all my intelligence doesn't  
hdp me solve a problem like this.  
May 10-I asked Professor Nemur about it, and he insists  
that I'm an innocent bystander and there's no reason for  
me to become involved in what would be an unpleasant  
situation. The &ct that I've been used as a go-between  
doesn't seem to bother him at all. If I didn't understand  
what was happening at the time, he says, then it doesn't  
matter. I'm no more to blame than the knife is to blame in  
a stabbing, or the car in a collision.  
"But I'm not an inanimate object," I argued. "I'm a  
person."  
He looked confused for a moment and then laughed.  
"Of course, Charlie. But I wasn't referring to now. I meant  
before the operation."  
Smug, pompous-! felt like hitting him too. "I was a  
person before the operation. In case you forgot-"  
"Yes, of course, Charlie. Don't misunderstand. But it  
was different ••• " And then he remembered that he had to  
check some charts in the lab.  
Dr. Strauss doesn't talk much during our psychotherapy sessions, but today when I brought it up, he said that  
I was morally obligated to tdl Mr. Donner. But the more I  
thought about it the less simple it became. I had to have  
someone dse to break the tie, and the only one I could  
think of was Alice. Finally, at ten thirty I couldn't hold out  
any longer. I dialed three times, broke off in the middle   
each time, but on the fourth try, I managed to hold on  
until her voice.  
At first she didn't think she should see me, but I  
begged her to meet me at the cafeteria where we had dinner together. "I n:spect you-you've always given me good  
advice." And when she still wavered, I insisted. "You haw  
to hdp me. You're partly n:sponsible. You said so yoursel£  
If not for you I would never have gone into this in the first  
place. You just can't shrug me off now."  
She must have sensed the urgency because she agreed  
to meet me. I hung up and stared at the phone. Why was  
it so important for me to know what she thought, how s!M  
felt? For more than a year at the Adult Center the only  
thing that mattered was pleasing her. Was that why I had  
agreed to the operation in the first place?  
I paced up and back in front of the cafeteria until the  
policeman began to eye me suspiciously. Then I went in  
and bought coffee. Fortunatdy, the table we had used last  
time was empty. She would think of looking for me back  
there.  
She saw me and waved to me, but stopped at the  
counter for coffee before she came over to the table. She  
smiled and I knew it was because I had chosen the same  
table. A foolish, romantic gesture.  
"I know it's late," I apologized, "but I swear I was  
going out of my mind. I had to talk to you."  
She sipped her coffee and listened quietly as I explained how I had found out about Gimpy's cheating, my  
90   
own reaction, and the conflicting advice I'd gotten at the  
lab. When I finished, she sat back and shook her head.  
"Charlie, you amaze me. In some ways you're so advanced, and yet when it comes to making a decision, you're  
still a child. I can't decide for you, Charlie. The answer  
can't be found in books-or be solved by bringing it to  
other people. Not unless you want to remain a child all  
your life. You've got to find the answer inside you-feel the  
right thing to do. Charlie, you've got to learn to uust  
yoursel£"  
At first, I was annoyed at her lecture, but then suddenly-it began to make sense. "You mean, rve got to  
decide?"  
She nodded.  
"In &a," I said, "now that I think of it, I believe I've  
already decided some of it! I think Nemur and Saauss are  
both wrong!"  
She was watching me closely, excitedly. "Something is  
happening to you, Charlie. If you could only see your  
face.,  
"You're damned right, something is happening! A  
cloud of smoke was hanging in front of my eyes, and with  
one breath you blew it away. A simple idea. Trust myse!f.  
And it never occurred to me before."  
"Charlie, you're wonderful."  
I caught her hand and hdd it. "No, it's you. You touch  
my eyes and make me see."  
She blushed and pulled her hand back.  
9I   
"The last time we were here, • I said, "I told you I  
liked you. I should have trusted myself to say I love you. •  
"Don't, Charlie. Not yet. •  
Wot yar I shouted. "That's what you said last time.  
Why not yet?"  
"Shhhh •.• Wait a while, Charlie. Finish your studies.  
See where they lead you. You're changing too fast. •  
"What does that have to do with it? My feeling for  
you won't change because I'm becoming intelligent. I'll  
only love you more. •  
"But you're changing emotionally too. In a peculiar  
sense I'm the first woman you've ever been really aware  
of.-in this way. Up to now I've been your teachersomeone you turn to for help and advice. You're bound to  
think you're in love with me. See other women. Give yourself more time. •  
"What you're saying is that young boys are always  
falling in love with their teachers, and that emotionally I'm  
still just a boy. •  
"You're twisting my words around. No, I don't think  
of you as a boy. •  
"Emotionally retarded then. •  
"No.•  
"Then, why?"  
"Charlie, don't push me. I don't know. Already, you've  
gone beyond my intellectual reach. In a few months or  
even weeks, you'll be a different person. When you mature  
intellectually, we may not be able to communicate. When  
you mature emotionally, you may not even want me. I've   
got to think of myself too, Charlie. Let's wait and see. Be  
patient."  
She was making sense, but I wasn't letting myself listen. "The other night-" I choked out, "You don't know  
how much I looked forward to that date. I was out of my  
mind wondering how to behave, what to say, wanting to  
make the best impression, and terrified I might say something to make you angry."  
"You didn't make me angry. I was flattered."  
"Then, when can I see you again?"  
"I have no right to let you get involved."  
"But I mn involved!" I shouted, and then seeing people  
tum to look, I lowered my voice until it aembled with  
anger. "I'm a person-a man-and I can't live with just  
books and tapes and dectronic mazes. You say, 'see other  
women.' How can I when I don't know any other women?  
Something inside is burning me up, and all I know is it  
makes me think of you. I'm in the middle of a page and I  
see your face on it-not blurred like those in my past, but  
clear and alive. I touch the page and your face is gone and  
I want to tear the book apan and throw it away."  
"Please, Charlie ••• "  
"Let me see you again."  
"Tomorrow at the lab."  
"You know that's not what I mean. Away from the lab.  
Away from the university. Alone."  
I could tdl she wanted to say yes. She was surprised by  
my insistence. I was surprised at mysel£ I only knew that I  
couldn't stop pressing her. And yet there was a terror in my   
throat as I begged her. My palms were damp. Was I afraid  
she'd say no, or afraid she'd say yes? If she hadn't broken the  
tension by answering me, I think I would have fainted.  
"All right, Charlie. Away from the lab and the university, but not alone. I don't think we should be alone  
together."  
"Anywhere you say," I gasped. "Just so I can be with  
you and not think of tests ••• statistics ••• questions •.• answers ••• "  
She frowned for a moment. "All right. They have free  
spring concerts in Central Park. Next week you can take  
me to one of the concerts."  
When we got to her doorway, she turned quickly and  
kissed my cheek. "Good night, Charlie. I'm glad you called  
me. I'll see you at the lab." She closed the door and I stood  
outside the building and looked at the light in her apartment window until it went out.  
There is no question about it now. I'm in love.  
MAy 11-After all this thinking and worrying, I realized  
Alice was right. I had to trust my intuition. At the bakery,  
I watched Gimpy more closely. Three times today, I saw  
him undercharging customers and pocketing his portion  
of the difference as the customers passed money back to  
him. It was only with certain regular customers that he did  
it, and it occurred to me that these people were as guilty as  
he. Without their agreement this could never take place.  
Why should Gimpy be the scapegoat?  
That's when I decided on the compromise. It might   
not be the perfect decision, but it was my decision, and it  
seemed to be the best answer under the circumstances. I  
would tell Gimpy what I knew and warn him to stop.  
I got him alone back by the washroom, and when I  
came up to him he started away. "I've got something important to talk to you about," I said. "I want your advice  
for a friend who has a problem. He's discovered that one of  
his fellow employees is cheating his boss, and he doesn't  
know what to do about it. He doesn't like the idea of informing and getting the guy into trouble, but he won't  
stand by and let his boss-who has been good to both of  
them-be cheated."  
Gimpy looked at me hard. "What does this friend of  
yours plan to do about it?"  
"That's the trouble. He doesn't want to do anything.  
He feels if the stealing stops there would be nothing gained  
by doing anything at all. He would forget about it."  
"Your friend ought to keep his nose in his own business," said Gimpy, shifting off his club foot. "He ought to  
keep his eyes closed to things like that and know who his  
friends are. A boss is a boss, and working people got to  
stick together."  
"My friend doesn't feel that way."  
"It's none of his business."  
"He feels that if he knows about it he's partly responsible. So he's decided that if the thing stops, he's got nothing more to say. Otherwise, he'll tell the whole story. I  
wanted to ask your opinion. Do you think that under the  
circumstances the stealing will stop?"  
9S   
It was a strain for him to conceal his anger. I could  
see that he wanted to hit me, but he just kept squeezing  
his fist.  
"Tell your friend the guy doesn't seem to have any  
choice."  
"That's fine," I said. "That will make my friend very  
happy."  
Gimpy started away, and then he paused and looked  
back. "Your friend-could it be maybe he's interested in a  
cut? Is that his reason?"  
"No, he just wants the whole thing to stop."  
He glared at me. "I can tell you, you'll be sorry you  
stuck your nose in. I always stood up for you. I should of  
had my head examined." And then he limped off.  
Perhaps I ought to have told Donner the whole story  
and had Gimpy fired-1 don't know. Doing it this way has  
something to be said for it. It's over and done with. But  
how many people are there like Gimpy who use other  
people that way?  
M.y 15-My studies are going well. The university library is my second home now. They've had to get me a  
private room because it takes me only a second to absorb  
the printed page, and curious students invariably gather  
around me as I Hip through my books.  
My most absorbing interests at the present time are  
etymologies of ancient languages, the newer works on the  
calculus of variations, and Hindu history. It's amazing the  
way things, apparendy disconnected, hang together. I've   
moved up to another plateau, and now the streams of the  
various disciplines seem to be closer to each other as if they  
flow from a single source.  
Strange how when I'm in the college cafeteria and hear  
the students arguing about history or politics or religion, it  
all seems so childish.  
I find no pleasure in discussing ideas any more on  
such an elementary level. People resent being shown that  
they don't approach the complexities of the problemthey don't know what exists beyond the surface ripples. It's  
just as bad on a higher level, and I've given up any attempt  
to discuss these things with the professors at Beekman.  
Burt introduced me to an economics professor at the  
faculty cafeteria, one well known for his work on the economic factors affecting interest rates. I had long wanted to  
talk to an economist about some of the ideas I had come  
across in my reading. The moral aspects of the military  
blockade as a weapon in times of peace had been bothering  
me. I asked him what he thought of the suggestion by  
some senators that we begin using such tactics as "blacklisting" and reinforcement of the navicert controls that had  
been used in World Wars I and ll, against some of the  
smaller nations which now oppose us.  
He listened quietly, staring off into space, and I assumed he was collecting his thoughts for an answer, but  
a few minutes later he cleared his throat and shook his  
head. That, he explained apologetically, was outside his  
area of specialization. His interest was in interest rates, and  
he hadn't given military economics much thought. He  
97   
suggested I see Dr. Wessey, who once did a paper on War  
Trade Agreements during World War II. He might be able  
to help me.  
Before I could say anything else, he grabbed my hand  
and shook it. He had been glad to meet me, but there were  
some notes he had to assemble for a lecture. And then he  
was gone.  
The same thing happened when I tried to discuss  
Chaucer with an American literature specialist, questioned  
an Orientalist about the Trobriand Islanders, and tried to  
focus on the problems of automation-caused unemployment with a social psychologist who specialized in public  
opinion polls on adolescent behavior. They would always  
find excuses to slip away, afraid to reveal the narrowness of  
their knowledge.  
How different they seem to be now. And how foolish  
I was ever to have thought that professors were intellectual  
giants. They're people-and afraid the rest of the world  
will find out. And Alice is a person too-a woman, not a  
goddess-and I'm taking her to the concert tomorrow  
night.  
MAy 17--Almost morning and I can't fall asleep. I've got  
to understand what happened to me last night at the  
concert.  
The evening started out well enough. The Mall at  
Central Park had filled up early, and Alice and I had to  
pick our way among the couples stretched out on the grass.  
Finaliy, far back from the path, we found an unused tree   
where-out of the range of lamplight-the only evidence  
of other couples was the protesting female laughter and the  
glow of lit cigarettes.  
"This will be fine," she said. "No reason to be right on  
top of the orchestra."  
"What's that they're playing now?" I asked.  
"Debussy's La Mer. Do you like it?"  
I settled down beside her. "I don't know much about  
this kind of music. I have to think about it."  
"Don't think about it," she whispered. "Feel it. Let it  
sweep over you like the sea without trying to understand."  
She lay back on the grass and turned her &ce in the direction of the music.  
I had no way of knowing what she expected of me.  
This was far from the clear lines of problem-solving and  
the systematic acquisition of knowledge. I kept telling myself that the sweating palms, the tightness in my chest, the  
desire to put my arms around her were merely biochemical  
reactions. I even traced the pattern of stimulus-andreaction that caused my nervousness and excitement. Yet  
everything was fuzzy and uncertain. Should I put my arm  
around her or not? Was she waiting for me to do it? Would  
she get angry? I could tell I was still behaving like an adolescent and it angered me.  
"Here," I choked, "why don't you make yourself more  
comfortable? Rest on my shoulder." She let me put my  
arm around her, but she didn't look at me. She seemed to  
be too absorbed in the music to realize what I was doing.  
Did she want me to hold her that way, or was she merely  
99   
tolerating it? As I slipped my arm down to her waist, I felt  
her tremble, but still she kept staring in the direction of the  
orchestra. She was pretending to be concentrating on the  
music so that she wouldn't have to respond to me. She  
didn't want to know what was happening. As long as she  
looked away, and listened, she could pretend that my  
closeness, my arms around her, were without her knowledge or consent. She wanted me to make love to her body  
while she kept her mind on higher things. I reached over  
roughly and turned her chin. "Why don't you look at me?  
Are you pretending I don't exist?"  
"No, Charlie," she whispered. "I'm pretending I don't  
exist."  
When I touched her shoulder she stiffened and  
trembled, but I pulled her toward me. Then it happened. It  
started as a hollow buzzing in my ears ... an dearie saw .••  
fM away. Then the cold: arms and legs prickly, and finger  
numbing. Suddenly, I had the feeling I was being watched.  
A sharp switch in perception. I saw, from some point  
in the darkness behind a tree, the two of us lying in each  
other's arms.  
I looked up to see a boy of fifteen or sixteen, crouching nearby. "Hey!" I shouted. As he stood up, I saw his  
trousers were open and he was exposed.  
"What's the matter?" she gasped.  
I jumped up, and he vanished into the darkness. "Did  
you see him?"  
"No," she said, smoothing her skirt nervously. "I  
didn't see anyone."  
100   
"Standing right here. Watching us. Close enough to  
touch you."  
"Charlie, where are you going?"  
"He couldn't have gotten very far."  
"Leave him alone, Charlie. It doesn't matter."  
But it mattered to me. I ran into the darkness,  
stumbling over startled couples, but there was no way to  
tell where he had gone.  
The more I thought about him, the worse became the  
queasy feeling that comes before fainting. Lost and alone  
in a great wilderness. And then I caught hold of myself and  
found my way back to where Alice was sitting.  
"Did you find him?"  
"No, but he was there. I saw him."  
She looked at me strangely. "Are you all right?"  
"I will be .•. in a minute ••. Just that damned buzzing 0 ,  
mmyears.  
"Maybe we'd better go."  
All the way back to her apartment, it was on my mind  
that the boy had been crouching there in the darkness, and  
for one second I had caught a glimpse of what he was seeing-the two of us lying in each other's arms.  
"Would you like to come in? I could make some  
coffee.,  
I wanted to, but something warned me against it.  
"Better not. I've got a lot of work to do tonight."  
101  
"Charlie, is it anything I said or did?"  
"Of course not. Just that kid watching us upset me."  
She was standing close to me, waiting for me to kiss   
her. I put my arm around her, but it happened again. If I  
didn't get away quickly, I would pass out.  
"Charlie, you look sick. •  
"Did you see him, Alice? The truth ••• •  
She shook her head. "No. It was too dark. But I'm  
sure-"  
"I've got to go. I'll call you." And before she could  
stop me, I pulled away. I had to get out of that building  
before everything caved in.  
Thinking about it now, I'm certain it was a hallucination. Dr. Strauss feels that emotionally I'm still in that adolescent state where being close to a woman, or thinking of  
sex, sets off anxiety, panic, even hallucinations. He feels  
that my rapid intellectual development has deceived me  
into thinking I could live a normal emotional life. But I've  
got to accept the fact that the fears and blocks triggered in  
these sexual situations reveal that emotionally I'm still an  
adolescent-sexually retarded. I guess he means I'm not  
ready for a relationship with a woman like Alice Kinnian.  
Not yet.  
May 20-I've been fired from my job at the bakery. I  
know it was foolish of me to hang on to the past, but there  
was something about the place with its white brick walls  
browned by oven heat ••• It was home to me.  
What did I do to make them hate me so?  
I can't blame Donner. He's got to think of his business, and the other employees. And yet, he's been closer to  
me than a father.  
I


End file.
